Long Shadows
by Alec Star
Summary: The events of 'The Farm' catch up with Kara. This story goes completely AU after 'Home, part 2'.
1. Chapter 1

**_Summary: _**The events from **_The Farm_** catch up with Kara. This story goes completely AU after **_Home, part 2_**.

**_Spoilers:_** Everything up to and including **_Home, part 2_**.

**_Author's notes:_** This story has been in the planning stages for a **very** long time. In fact I began thinking about it long before **_Resurrection Ship_** aired and **_Shards_** was written to make it easier for me to understand where Kara was coming from. Reading **_Shards_** is by no means necessary to make sense out of this one, as this story is a stand alone.

**_Warnings:_** Non-descriptive references to child abuse in later chapters (how did child abuse get to be an 'adult issue' anyway?).

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**_Long Shadows_**

Chapter 1  
(Lee's POV)

It all started with something so small that I almost missed it... or rather I almost dismissed it. It was just a sharp intake of breath from Kara as she sat up in her bunk, a grimace of pain and an abortive gesture with her hand... one that was stopped as soon as she realized that I was watching her. That was the first thing that arose my suspicions... suspicions that were compounded by the worried look Helo was giving her.

Helo, now that is one guy I'm still having a hard time trying to figure out. In fact --even after Kobol-- I still don't really know how I feel about him, I still don't know whether or not I can trust him. On the one hand it is pretty apparent that Kara thinks of him as a friend, a good friend, and I trust her judgment in that regard, but on the other the guy is in love with a frakking toaster--another copy of the 'woman' I saw pumping two rounds into my father's chest no less-- and he knows it. That is not something I'm ever likely to forget.

Sure, I know things must have been rough for him back on Caprica. In fact I can't even begin to imagine the hell he must have gone through there and I understand him putting his full trust in his 'partner', at least at first... but to stick with her, to trust her even **_after_** he discovered what she really was, after he realized that he'd been played? That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, far from it.

Still I know that now is not the time for me to be worrying about that, especially because I get the funny feeling that there's something big going on here, something I don't understand, something I'm not going to like. That Helo is worried about Kara is pretty apparent but the thing is that he seems to know more about what is going on with her right now than I do and --as petty as it sounds-- that bothers me.

It bothers me to see him sitting down next to her and it bothers me to see him reaching for her forehead, checking her temperature, though I do manage to find some comfort in the annoyed look on her face as she swats his hand away.

"Kara, has the doc checked you over since we've been back?" he asks gently, even though it is pretty obvious that he already knows --or at least suspects-- what the answer to his question is going to be and I'm not particularly surprised when Kara doesn't say anything, at least not with words though her glare certainly speaks volumes.

The question that comes to my mind, however, is why would Helo have assumed that Kara **_had_** been to see Cottle in the first place.

I'm still thinking about that when I see him tugging her arm and encouraging her to get up.

"Come on, I'll go with you," he says in a tone that leaves no room for argument.

"I can't. I have CAP in less than half an hour," she reminds him, shaking his hand off.

"I don't think so."

"Helo..." she warns him.

"You are running a fever," he points out, refusing to back down.

"I'm **_fine_**," she growls, obviously on the brink of losing her temper and trying hard not to look at me.

"Kara, are you okay?" I ask, jumping into the fray, not entirely sure of what is going on here but still determined to get myself some answers.

"I'm fine," she insists, now glaring at both of us.

"Then you won't mind Cottle checking you over, just to be on the safe side, right? I'll get someone else to cover your shift," I say.

"There's no need. I'm fine and we are short on pilots," she reminds me.

"That wasn't a suggestion, Lieutenant, and you know it. You know the rules, you can't fly if you are sick."

"I'm not sick. Besides, what are you going to do, gang up with Helo here and frog-march me to sickbay?" she challenges, crossing her arms and digging her heels in.

"If I have to. Why are you fighting this so hard?" I ask, still wondering what the hell is going on here but knowing that her health has to take priority over my curiosity... besides I will have plenty of time to get myself some answers later.

"Because we are short on pilots, we are short on sleep, we are all exhausted and I'm fine!" she snaps.

"Kara, have you been debriefed?" asks Helo, seemingly out of nowhere and I find myself wondering --again-- just what the frak it is that I'm missing here... and what does Kara's debriefing have to do with anything, especially because I can't help but notice that that question has earned him another glare from the unwilling focus of our attention, one that is enough to cause that nagging feeling of unease I've been having these past few minutes to morph into a sense of dread as I become almost painfully aware that Helo is right, that she **_hasn't_** been debriefed. In fact that is one of the countless things that seem to have fallen through the cracks amidst the chaos of these past few days as we've struggled to put the fleet back together again.

The truth is that at the time the fact that there had been no formal debriefing hadn't been anywhere near the top of anyone's priority list, it hadn't seemed all that important, especially because we all assumed that she had told us everything we needed to know before we even reached that tomb. In fact I suspect that one of the main reasons why my father has been so willing to let that debriefing slip is precisely because one of the things Kara mentioned back on Kobol is that there are survivors on Caprica and probably on the other colonies as well. That is not a subject anyone of us is willing to broach if we can avoid it... especially because we already know that there will be no going back, there will be no rescue mission and that is a decision we all find easier to make than to acknowledge.

The problem is that now it seems that in our attempt to avoid that particular subject we may also have allowed other things to remain hidden, things that should probably have come to light almost as soon as we rejoined the fleet a couple of days ago.

Well, one way or another that is about to change. I know there is something going on here now, I know there is something wrong with Kara --something Helo knows or at least suspects-- and I am determined to find out just what it is... even if that means frog-marching a certain stubborn pilot down to sickbay and actually sitting on top of her while she is debriefed.


	2. Chapter 2

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1_**

Chapter 2  
(Kara's POV)

Okay, I have to admit that I never thought the day would come in which I would actually be grateful to have Cottle yelling at me for doing something stupid but here I am, though the truth is that it's not so much that I'm grateful for all the yelling as it is that I am almost painfully aware of the fact that this is nothing compared to what is coming the moment the doc is done with me.

I know that as soon as he is done with me both Lee and the Old Man will be storming in here demanding some answers and the truth is that I don't know what the frak I am supposed to tell them, not really. After all, not volunteering any information when they weren't exactly asking was one thing, openly lying to them now is another. In fact that is a line I cannot cross, that is a risk I can't afford to take and I know it... but then again, telling them the whole truth is not much of an option either. **_That_** is the problem.

I guess my best bet right now is to answer their questions, just like I'm supposed to... and pray that they **_don't_** ask the right ones, at least not all of them. That's probably the best I can hope for under the circumstances but I'm still not looking forward to it. I've spent these past few days trying to forget all about that gods-forsaken farm, to put it all behind me, and now I know I'm about to be reminded of it... in painful detail.

I know I'm going to have to tell them that I was shot and operated on, there's no question about that --though I suspect that Cottle will probably beat me to it on that one-- and then I'm going to have to tell them about the experiments the cylons are conducting back on Caprica. That one is not going to go over well and I know it but it is still not the part I'm most worried about, not really.

Well, at least the good news is that I'll be able to add the descriptions of two more cylon models to the list, Simon and that blonde bitch. Hopefully that will be enough to distract them, at least for a while, though on the other hand they are not going to be happy about the fact that I didn't volunteer that information the second I came back... and somehow I don't think they would believe me if I were to try to tell them that it just slipped my mind. I am well aware that identifying as many cylon models as we can is one of our top priorities --especially since Boomer almost succeeded in taking out the Old Man-- and in that regard I know I deserve everything I get for putting this off but the truth is that I just couldn't figure out how to tell them about the cylons I met back on Caprica without revealing everything I went through back on that planet and when I first came back I was far from ready to do that, in fact I'm **_still_** not ready. Unfortunately I do realize that I don't have much of a choice in the matter, not any more.

In fact the most I can hope for right now is for a few more minutes and those minutes won't really make much of a difference. They won't change anything in terms of my confrontation with the Old Man and they certainly won't change anything about the fact that I'm stuck in here and I hate it.

I hate being stuck in this bed, I always have. I feel so frakking helpless just lying here with everyone looming over me but if what Cottle is telling me is anything to go by then it looks like I'm going to be in here for a while... whether I like it or not. In fact the doc seemed almost gleeful when he told me about that, the problem is that this time around I know it's going to be worse than ever, to the point that I really don't know if I can take it.

Caprica is still too fresh in my mind and even now I'm battling the memories of Simon and what he did to me. Sure, I know where I am now and I know this is not a frakking farm --I mean, even the cylons have a better bedside manner than Cottle-- but in spite of that I still couldn't help the feeling of dread that came over me as one of the nurses inserted an IV into my arm a while ago so how the frak am I supposed to make it through the next few days?

Well, I guess I'm going to have to figure out a way to do it somehow because I know better than to hope that the doc will change his mind about keeping me here... especially seeing how he is still fuming because I didn't tell him that I was hurt in the first place. In fact right now he is busy telling me **_exactly_** what is wrong with me, not that I didn't know that already.

I mean, the fact that I have two incisions is not exactly breaking news, at least not to me, though I have to say I'm relieved to hear that at least in that regard that cylon butcher did a pretty good job. The problem is that while I'm happy about that, I'm still not looking forward to finding out exactly what it was that he did to me in the first place, but that's a different matter altogether. Another thing that doesn't really come as much of a shock is the fact that Cottle tells me I have the beginnings of an infection. Seeing how I've been pretty much feeling like crap since last night I have to say that I was kind of expecting that one too. In fact what **_would_** have been surprising would have been if the doc had found that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me and everything was healing nicely. After all, I haven't exactly been doing any of the things the resistance so-called-medic suggested... I've been too busy doing what I had to do to stay alive to worry about that.

In other words, I haven't been taking it easy, I haven't been keeping the wounds clean --especially because for some reason there was a distinct lack of showers back on Kobol-- and I didn't have a real doctor check my incisions over as soon as I could. Okay, so maybe that last one was more of a choice but still, what can I say? I just couldn't come up with an excuse to see Cottle without having to reveal everything I'd been through and that wasn't something I was ready to do. That's why I figured that I might as well take my chances and hope that, for once, things would work themselves out on their own.

I mean, I knew that at least in theory I could have come see the doc and I also knew that I might even have hoped to get away without answering too many of his questions about what had happened to me in the first place --like I'm trying to do now-- but I also knew it wasn't going to be that simple. I knew that, even though I had the whole doctor/patient confidentiality thing on my side, there was no way it could possibly have stayed there. Even though Cottle himself would have been duty-bound to keep the details of my condition to himself if I had come see him, he would also have had no choice but to ground me and **_that_** would inevitably have led to way too many questions being asked about **_why_** it was that I was being grounded in the first place, questions that would have been coming straight from the Old Man, questions I **_wouldn't_** have been allowed to refuse to answer. That was the part I had been dreading, with 'had' being the operative word here because I know it can no longer be avoided.

I know the questions are coming and somehow I'm going to have to figure out a way to answer them and I'm also going to have to figure out a way to keep myself together while I do it. The problem is that I don't know if I can pull that one off. Yes, I know that what the Commander will want to know are just the facts and those are fairly straight forward but I don't know if I'll be able to stick to them, if I'll be able to keep my emotions at bay and distance myself from everything I went through back on Caprica... especially because even now I still can't close my eyes without seeing Sue-Shaun and the others.


	3. Chapter 3

_**For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1**_

Chapter 3  
(Adama's POV) 

I'm waiting for Cottle to come out and tell us what's wrong and the truth is that I hate waiting, especially when it means not knowing what is going on in my ship, what is happening with my people. The only thing I know is that it looks like Starbuck is sick and that it probably has something to do with Caprica... or at least that's Lee's theory based on Lieutenant Agathon's reaction. The problem is that that theory is far from comforting, especially because if he is right then there has been something wrong with her for several days and we didn't even notice. **_That_**, I must admit, is likely to have been at least partially my fault.

I was so relieved to see her back on Kobol --especially because I had assumed that this time around she had finally pushed things too far, that she had finally bitten more than she could chew with that damned mission back to Caprica-- that seeing her standing there in one piece felt almost like a miracle... and I didn't dare question that miracle. The problem is that now it is beginning to look like the part about her being in one piece was an illusion and I'm cursing myself for assuming she was fine. Sure, she **_looked_** fine and she held her own on Kobol but I still should have insisted that Cottle give her a complete check up as soon as we came back, just to be on the safe side. That would have been the logical thing to do --especially considering that radiation sickness was a very real possibility-- but with so many things going on at once I have to admit that it never even crossed my mind.

In fact, even though it's been over two days since we rejoined the fleet, I still haven't been able to get around to her debriefing so I'm still not sure of what happened back on that planet. The political situation, the fact that Lieutenant Agathon came back from the dead --bringing with him another copy of Sharon Valerii-- and even my own health all have played a part in me putting off that particular encounter... as has the fact that I know that as soon as I confront her I'm going to have to make an official decision about the fate of the resistance and that is not going to be easy.

The truth is that the fact that there were likely to be survivors on Caprica and on the other colonies is something we should have considered a long time ago --after all the first Boomer came back with a raptor full of children and a report that she had left close to a hundred others behind at a single landing spot-- but at the same time it was something we didn't want to face. It was also something the President and I could forgive ourselves for not thinking about as we struggled to keep the fleet one step ahead of the cylons but now it looks like we won't be able to keep ignoring it for much longer.

The problem is that when we finally acknowledge it we are going to have to acknowledge that the people who were left behind with no hope of escape are our own people... and we are also going to have to acknowledge the fact that there can be no going back, that there can be no rescue mission.

On a rational level I know we can't afford it and that, even if we could, there's no way we could possibly justify a return **_just_** to Caprica. That is what makes this whole situation so untenable. If we were to go to Caprica and come back with survivors it would be a disaster. There would be demands from the survivors of all the other colonies that we go back to their own planets to look for their loved ones and that would be impossible... but a refusal to do so would tear the fleet apart, it would pit colony against colony. That is not a risk we can afford to take, not after what we've just been through.

If the fleet is to survive then the fact that there are survivors back in the colonies must remain a secret... and that means that those survivors are doomed. That is not an easy decision for me to make, far from it, but I know it is the only thing we can do... and I also know I am the one who must assume that responsibility because there's no way I can afford to leave it in Laura's hands.

Sure, I'm confident that she would agree with me, that she would make the right decision no matter how hard it was. After all, she already made an equally tough call when she chose to leave the ships without FTL capabilities behind, when she chose to save those she could rather than try to save those she couldn't but things are different now. Back then the situation was so desperate that she could afford to do whatever was necessary without worrying about the political consequences but that is no longer the case. Now there are other things she has to take into account, such as the fact that if Zarek were to get wind of the fact that we refused to go back --and he was with us on Kobol so chances are that he already knows that there are survivors back in the colonies-- he could easily use that as his trump card to win the next election.

That is a risk we can't afford to take and it is also the kind of thing that can make Laura's position so vulnerable but luckily the next election is not something I have to worry about... and in the end the fact that any possible rescue mission would have to involve the military makes the feasibility of such a mission a military decision. It makes it my call.

In fact from a logistical perspective the situation is simple enough: we don't have the resources to even consider it. We have a single battlestar, a limited number of vipers and raptors and there's no way those resources would enable us to attempt a rescue mission without running the risk of fatally crippling the fleet. In addition to that there is also the fact that for something of this magnitude to stand a chance the Galactica herself would have to be directly involved and that would mean that the whole fleet would have to jump back with us or that we would have no choice but to leave the fleet behind with no protection whatsoever. Neither one of those is a viable option and I know it... and that doesn't even begin to take into account the fact that, even if we were to carry out one or two successful rescue operations, after that the cylons would only have to stake out the remaining colonies and wait us out, or the fact that any large group of survivors would have attracted the cylons' attention by now so those survivors are bound to be scattered and disorganized, making any possible rescue all that more difficult.

The problem is that even though that analysis makes perfect sense from a logical and military perspective, if word of the existence of survivors were to spread throughout the fleet, logic would be the last thing on people's minds. If word of this were to spread out then every man, woman and child would demand that we go back in the hope that their loved ones would be among those who are still clinging to life and that is precisely what we can't afford to do.

Of course, I understand. After all, I do realize that that position wouldn't be all that different from the one I took when Kara crashed on that moon a while ago, when I had to choose between attempting to get her back and doing my duty in terms of protecting the fleet, when I openly told Lee that if it had been him on that moon we would never have left. In other words I know that by deciding that we are not going back I will effectively be making on behalf of thousands of others the same decision I couldn't make for myself.

The thing is that what troubles me is not so much the idea of making a decision --in fact that decision has already been made-- but rather the idea of being confronted with exactly what the consequences of that decision are going to be, with what kind of fate I'll be dooming those survivors to. I know that at least in theory the answer to that question is that they'll either be hunted down one by one by the cylons or that the radiation will get them in the end, but up until now that has been mostly a theoretical prospect because I haven't given much thought to the details. Even during Lieutenant Agathon's debriefing --the one I knew could not be postponed-- my main focus was the situation with the cylon in the brig. That provided me with a reasonable excuse to avoid this particular subject but now I'll have no choice but to confront it head on.

Well, I always tell my people not to speculate and the truth is that I won't know how bad the situation really is until I can talk to Kara, until I can figure out exactly what happened to her back on Caprica and what is going on in what used to be my world... though the truth is that it hadn't been my world in a very long time. For years the Galactica has been my world and her crew has been my family. I loved Caroline but that was over, it had been over for a very long time and I knew it, I had made my peace with that fact and she was no longer a part of my life, not like she was a part of Lee's.

Sure, the fact that she didn't make it pains me, it always will, but I know that is nothing compared to what almost everyone else in the fleet has had to deal with. When the cylons attacked Zak was already dead and by some miracle Lee was here with me as was Kara so --even though I lost more friends than I care to remember-- my losses were nowhere near as great as they could have been. I'm not a religious man, I don't really believe in the gods or anything like that but that doesn't keep me from realizing just how lucky I was, how grateful I should be... especially because I still remember those hours when I believed my son to be dead.

In a very odd way I think that that was probably one of the things that made it possible for me to keep going when the worlds ended: the fact that somehow my world survived, the fact that my world **_wasn't_** in the colonies, it was up here, it was fighting the cylons till the day I die. This is my life, it has always been, and I know it.

I remember the pain of seeing my ship being turned into a museum all around me and feeling almost like an exhibit myself, just like I remember the stupid arguments about the changes some bureaucrats wanted to implement in order to make the lives of teachers easier, not giving a damn about what the Galactica was supposed to be or about the men and women who died onboard this ship to protect the colonies. I knew even then that that was not the way things were meant to be, that that was not how it was supposed to end... for either one of us.

I will never be grateful that the colonies were lost, of course, but that does nothing to change the fact that I am home, doing what I was always meant to do, and my family is still with me --for the most part-- though I'll certainly feel a lot better once Cottle comes out and tells me exactly what is wrong with Starbuck. I mean, what could possibly be taking him so long?

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**_Author's notes:_** Hi guys, okay, this is my first attempt at writing the older Adama and I just hope I didn't make too much of a mess of things... and I also wanted to let you know (before you start getting frustrated) that things are about to start moving forward soon enough. Also, in a totally unrelated, shameless plug, I wanted to let you know that I'm finally done with my SG-1 epic _Under Alien Skies_, just in case anyone is interested. Finally I wanted to thank you for your feedback (and ask you to keep it coming, of course). Thanks for reading,

Alec


	4. Chapter 4

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 4  
(Cottle's POV)

As soon as I set foot outside the curtain both Adamas pounce on me, just like I was expecting them to. In fact the only real surprise of the lot is Lieutenant Agathon who has been here from the moment Starbuck was first dragged in and yet seems to be trying hard to meld with the walls, but then again I'm guessing he is a smart boy and doesn't want to have Bill pouncing on him. After all, if there is someone who is likely to have at least some clue as to what it is that Thrace is hiding, it is precisely our young lieutenant here.

He was with her on Caprica so he must have at least some idea of what is really going on here, about what happened to her there, though going by the scene I just walked in on I'd say that chances are he is not volunteering any information. That means that he is probably willing to take a reprimand rather than 'betray' Starbuck and **_that_** doesn't bode well for whatever it is that she is hiding... especially not considering that he is already on pretty thin ice because of his relationship with that cylon, a relationship I haven't really wanted to think too much about up until now.

Sure, we know 'she' is pregnant --I confirmed that myself-- and she claims that he is the father, a claim he hasn't tried to deny so he must at least be considered a likely candidate, though it is way too early for us to conduct any kind of DNA test to confirm that. Still, just the thought of it is enough to bring up a whole truckload of problems we are going to have to deal with sooner or later, like the fact that if he really **_is_** the father then human-cylon hybrids are bound to be a possibility and my gut is telling me that that is something we are going to be hearing a lot more about, to say nothing of the fact that this is going to blur the line between humans and cylons even further and that line was already too frakking blurry for anyone's liking.

To discover that the cylons now look like us was bad enough, but at least there we had the comfort of knowing that they were copies of a limited number of models and those models could be tracked and identified. If human-cylon hybrids are a a real possibility then that would no longer be the case with the next generation because --unlike the cylons themselves-- the hybrids would probably be individuals and that would make recognizing them almost impossible.

In fact even Baltar's so-called-detector, if the damned thing works at all, is likely to be rendered completely useless.

Well, the good news --if it can be called that-- is that from what Lieutenant Agathon told me when I confirmed 'Sharon's' pregnancy, I would guess that 'she' is an exception and that we don't really have to worry about the possibility of an army of hybrids coming after us any time soon. In fact that probably won't be a concern for another eighteen years or so and for the time being no one is making long term plans around here anyway. That's good because right now we certainly have more than enough problems... and the fact that 'Sharon' is here means that I'll be able to keep an eye on that pregnancy, it means that I'll have a chance to learn from it and from whatever comes out of it. That may not sound like much but it may be enough to enable us to figure out just what the frak it is that we are up against before it bites us on the ass... maybe.

Besides, right now the cylon is not my main concern, she is not my patient. My patient this time around is human... not that that is much of an improvement. What can I say? If nothing else, at least the cylons don't come with concerned families attached... or at least they didn't use to.

"She's going to be fine," I say before either of the Adamas can utter a word.

"What's wrong with her?" comes the rather predictable question from the Old Man.

"For starters she has the beginnings of an infection, that's what's causing the fever, but other than that I'm not sure, to tell you the truth. That girl is being stubborn... not that there's anything new about that."

"Can you be a little more specific?" he growls, obviously **_not_** happy.

"Well, I can tell you that she has a couple of incisions and apparently the older one of those is from someone extracting a bullet but other than that..."

"**_WHAT?_** You mean to tell us she was shot?" exclaims Apollo, beating his father to it, though I can't help but notice that Lieutenant Agathon doesn't seem to be particularly surprised by that revelation as he just lets out a resigned sigh.

"I figured she hadn't mentioned it, otherwise you would probably have dragged her sorry ass in here as soon as she came back. Yes, she was shot, but that's not really the problem."

"How can that **_not_** be the problem?" asks Bill.

"I mean that that gunshot wound seems to be healing nicely enough and I really don't expect it to cause much trouble in the long run. No, the incision I'm worried about is the second one, the one she is so frakking tightlipped about. Anyway, she's feeling pretty miserable right now and she is also grounded for at least two weeks, then we'll see but for now you are free to go in there and get yourselves some answers, just try not to push too hard. Remember, this is not a resort and she is in here for a reason."

"But she hasn't told you anything?"

"I didn't ask, or rather I didn't push. I didn't see the point, not after it became apparent that she didn't want to talk to me in the first place," I admit.

"That's not like you," he points out.

"Oh, I knew I would be getting my answers eventually so I wasn't worried about that but I also knew you'd want to know what those answers were so I figured that, with doctor/patient confidentiality rules being what they are, I'd better let you ask the questions yourself. I can tell you though that whatever it is she's **_not_** telling me about, it is making her nervous, that's why I decided not to push things too hard. She may not be in any immediate danger but she is upset enough already and I didn't see the point in upsetting her any more if I didn't have to. This way she just has to go over it once."

"But she is going to be fine?" insists the Commander, trying hard to sound as a stern CO rather than as a concerned father... and failing miserably.

"I think so, but I won't be able to say for sure until I know what the frak that second incision is from. As I said, that's the one I'm worried about... or rather about how defensive she gets whenever I mention it. That is not a good sign."

"Just how serious are we likely to be talking about here, doc?"

"From a medical perspective I can tell you that the wound itself seems to be healing reasonably well considering that she **_hasn't_** been taking good care of it --and I can also tell you that whoever operated on her was almost certainly a doctor with a real OR at his or her disposal, which is surprising enough considering what the conditions on Caprica were probably like-- but there's no way I can tell you what it's from just by looking at it and until I can figure that one out there's no way I can tell you what the long term consequences are likely to be. Now, going by Starbuck's general condition, and by the fact that she has been pretty much able to function up until now, I'm hoping there will be no lasting effects from that one either and that, whatever that surgery was, it was fairly minor --otherwise I doubt she would have been able to conceal it for as long as she did-- but the truth is that I'm somewhat worried about her mental state. That is my main concern right now."

"Can we see her?" asks Bill, who is obviously **_not_** willing to take 'no' for an answer.

"Go ahead," I say as I lead them back to her bed and wait for the fireworks to begin, knowing that this probably won't be pretty. Thrace may be a pain in the ass but I know it takes a lot to rattle her and right now that girl is most definitely rattled.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, okay another week, another chapter and another POV (to say nothing of another annoying author's note).

First of all, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this, I really appreciate it.

In addition to that I also wanted to mention something I forgot last week: I know that some of Adama's thoughts about the fact that his life wasn't in the Colonies don't work all that well with the flashbacks in **_Scattered_** (where a new wife, Anne, is mentioned). I didn't forget about it, I was just deliberately ignoring it. The way I see it --while those flashbacks work well to flesh out Tigh's character-- they don't work so well with what we know of Adama's background or even with what we see in flashbacks from the first season. For instance, if Adama was married, where was his wife in Zak's funeral? Sure, it would be possible to say that she didn't attend to avoid a scene with Caroline but somehow I don't buy it.

Anyway that is the reason why I decided to ignore the two lines in which she is mentioned... and now I'll shut up, before this note winds up being longer than the chapter,

Alec


	5. Chapter 5

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 5  
(Lee's POV)

The moment I see Kara I realize that this is **_not_** going to be easy... not that I was expecting it to be. She is obviously scared and trying hard not to show it. That means that chances are we are about to go up against a reinforced version of the Great Wall of Starbuck and --having butted heads with the regular version of that particular wall more times than I care to remember-- I can't help but cringe at the thought. In fact what I was thinking earlier about me having to sit on top of her while she was debriefed may turn out to be far more accurate than I ever expected it to be.

The problem is that I'm liking this whole situation less and less with every passing second. Sure, Kara can easily out-stubborn your average mule when she wants to, I've always known that, but that doesn't change anything. Kara's stubbornness is something I'm intimately familiar with and therefore it is something I should have taken into account from the very beginning. It is **_not_** something that should have kept me from realizing that there was something seriously wrong with her almost from the moment she came back and I know it.

In fact now that I think back to what happened when we were in front of Sharon's cell I realize that she came close to telling me then... or if not telling me at least she hinted at the fact that **_something_** had happened to her, something big, something I didn't know about. The problem is that at the time I was so wrapped up in my own anger that instead of listening to what she was trying to say, instead of trying to find out what the frak she was talking about, I pushed her away --literally-- and by the next time I saw her, when she was playing with that stupid ball, the walls had already gone up and it was too late... though even then I could see that she was hurting and hurting bad. The thing is that even though I can now see those lost opportunities for what they were, what bothers me is not so much the fact that I missed something but rather the magnitude of what I missed.

I mean, I'm not only supposed to be her CO, I'm also supposed to be her friend, so what does the fact that I didn't even realize she was hurt, that she had actually been **_shot_**, say about me? How could I possibly have failed to notice something like that? How could I possibly have shoved her against that fence? Of course, I know this is not **_entirely_** my fault either and that leads me to the question of what the frak could she possibly have been thinking when she didn't tell me about it. I mean, I understand that after everything she had done to get that arrow there was no way she was going to agree to being left behind when we went in search of that tomb --just like I know that if she had told me she had been shot she **_would_** have been left behind, whether she wanted to or not-- but somehow I suspect that there's a lot more to it than that, especially because that still doesn't account for that mysterious second surgery, the one even Cottle has been unable to explain... and it certainly doesn't account for her words in front of Sharon's cell when she downright told me that I had no idea of what she had been through.

Well, even though I know it is already too late, it looks like I'm finally going to get some answers... and the truth is that I'm dreading it.

For a moment it seems like no one is really sure of what to say, of how to begin. I know that the first move has to come from dad, after all he is the commander, but he seems to be determined to take his time.

"So the doctor tells me you were shot," he says after what feels like an eternity.

"Yes, sir," confirms Kara without looking up and without volunteering any additional information.

"What happened?"

"A gun was fired and its bullet entered my abdomen, sir," she replies. Well, I have to admit that it is an answer to dad's question --I'll give her that-- though I suspect it's **_not_** the one he is after and he is **_not_** going to be happy about it.

"Don't play games with me, Lieutenant. You know what I want to know."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm waiting."

"We were planning a raid when the cylons found us. I was shot just as everyone else was retreating and woke up in some sort of hospital," she says, rather reluctantly, after gathering her thoughts for a moment. "I was told that some members of the resistance had brought me in. At the time I was too out of it to ask too many questions but eventually I realized that something didn't add up. The place was just too frakking quiet and the doctor kept knocking me out. Then, after a couple of days, I woke up with a second scar... the one the doc was asking about. That's when I got suspicious... especially when the 'doctor' called me 'Starbuck'. I hadn't told him my call sign so the next time he tried to sedate me I pinched my IV to keep the drugs from getting to me and then I stumbled out of my room somehow and saw him talking to another copy of the woman I had fought back at the museum. That's when I knew he was a cylon, it was the only thing that made sense. I went back to my room, smashed a mirror and then when Simon came close enough I slashed his throat."

"Simon?"

"The 'doctor'. As I was trying to get out of there I walked into a room and..." she trails off and I realize that this is probably the part she doesn't want to talk about, the reason why she concealed what had happened to her in the first place, not that the rest of it has been particularly pleasant.

"What did you find, Lieutenant?" asks my father, trying to keep this impersonal, trying to keep her focused on the facts, though I can see that he is worried.

"There were about half a dozen women there, they were hooked to these machines... one of them was Sue-Shaun..."

"Sue-Shaun?"

"A member of the resistance," she explains. "They had probably captured her when they got me."

"And the machines?" asks dad.

"I'm not sure how they worked, not really, but... I do know what they were, what the cylons were trying to do: they were experimenting on those women, trying to impregnate them, trying to create hybrids. The hospital was a farm..."

"A farm?"

"That's what Sharon called it... it was a place for them to breed us like cattle. I wanted to get Sue-Shaun out but I knew I couldn't and so did she... she told me that much. She knew that trying to get her away from those machines would have taken me too long, that we'd never make it... there were so many tubes everywhere... but I couldn't leave her there, not like that, so I did the only thing I could: I... I smashed the machines, I smashed all of them. I killed Sue-Shaun, I killed every woman in that room."

"It's okay," I say, almost painfully aware of just how upset she is and trying to offer some comfort, like I should have done when she came back, but deep down I know there is really nothing I can do.

"And then?" asks dad, obviously wanting to get this over with once and for all.

"I managed to make it out, barely. Helo, Sharon and the resistance found me. I wanted to stay and fight, to take out that frakking place, to take out every single farm on Caprica, but that wasn't why I had gone back and I couldn't afford to do it. By that time Sharon had already managed to commandeer the heavy raider so we came back."

"And why is this the first I'm hearing about any of this?" growls my father and I can't help but cringe at that.

"I... I didn't think it mattered."

"What do you mean 'you didn't think it mattered'?"

"There is nothing we can do about any of it, not from out here anyway, and I know we are not going back. The resistance said they would take care of it," she says with a hint of accusation in her voice.

"It still wasn't your call, Lieutenant," dad reminds her.

"I know, sir, but at the time our top priority was to find that tomb and, with all due respect, you weren't even here when I came back... you had been shot, the fleet was split and everything was so frakked up."

"You still should have told me you were hurt before we went down to Kobol, Kara," I remind her, knowing that even though she has a point about dad not being here she should still have reported this.

"And what would you have done? Left me behind in the 'safety' of the _Astral Queen_? There was no point in saying anything at the time and you know it because the bottom line is that we had a mission to accomplish and we couldn't stop just because of what those bastards had done to me."

"We have been back for two days, Lieutenant. Even if what you are saying is true --and I do have my doubts about you failing to notify Captain Adama at the time-- you should still have reported to sickbay as soon as you set foot back on the Galactica. Besides, there is also the fact that you concealed the information regarding two new cylon models."

"I thought Helo had mentioned those..." she begins but Helo interrupts her.

"I only saw one of them, Kara, the blonde woman... I never really saw a copy of Simon."

"We will discuss that later, and I expect you to provide us with a detailed description," says dad and going by his tone I'm fairly certain that he is nowhere near done with her, the problem is that I'm not sure how much more of this Kara can take.


	6. Chapter 6

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1_**

Chapter 6  
(Kara's POV)

Okay, I'm officially in trouble now. Sure, I knew from the moment Lee and Helo dragged me in here that some things were bound to come out --things I would much rather have kept to myself-- but the truth is that this is even worse than I had been anticipating and it is not over yet, not by a long shot. I can see that the Old Man still has plenty of questions and **_that_** is a problem... especially because if he says that we will be discussing the cylons and the fact that I **_didn't_** provide him with a description as soon as I came back 'later' then chances are that he has other things he wants to discuss now. In other words, chances are that he is going to ask me about the farm, about what happened there, about what I saw, but I can't go there, not now.

"But getting back to the cylon's activities on Caprica, to the best of your knowledge the farm was destroyed, correct?" he asks, confirming my worst fears as to where this is going.

"Maybe that one," I say, closing my eyes as I feel my control begin to slip and I realize that there's no way I'm going to be able to pull this off.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that according to Sharon there were hundreds if not thousands of women being held in farms all over the frakking colonies so, yes, I think chances are that the resistance was able to take out that particular facility --and even if they didn't the women in it were already dead-- but that doesn't mean a thing. The resistance may have had good intentions but their resources were just too limited. They had only a handful of guns, a few vehicles and gas was not exactly abundant so I don't see how they could possibly have been in a position to do anything about the other farms on Caprica, to say nothing of the other eleven colonies," I snap, knowing that there's nothing I can do, knowing that the cylons have won, that even though I managed to escape that doesn't mean a frakking thing in the grand scheme of things... unless you want to take into account the whole 'you are special' crap they keep throwing at me, of course. I don't really know what they mean by that but the truth is that it scares the hell out of me... especially because my gut is telling me that there's a lot more to it than them frakking with my head.

"It's okay, Kara," says Lee --again-- and I'm deeply grateful for his attempt to offer some sort of reassurance, though it would certainly work a lot better if it weren't because we both know it's nowhere near okay, if we didn't both know that there's no way those women are ever getting out... and that most of them won't even be as lucky as Sue-Shaun to have someone put them out of their misery.

Sure, I understand that from a military perspective the experiments the cylons are conducting are likely to turn out to be extremely important, especially if they succeed, and on a rational level I realize that I should probably have passed that information along as soon as I came back but the thing is that I'll never be able to see this as a military matter, I'll never be able to be 'rational' about it... not after I was held in one of those farms, not after I came so frakking close to spending the rest of my life attached to one of those damned machines, pushing out half-cylon bastards.

I don't think Lee or the Old Man can even begin to understand what it was like. For them the fight is up here and for the most part it is a clean fight. As far as they know we live or we die and the cylons are out to kill us. In fact they are convinced that even if they get us it will all be over reasonably quickly. A handful of nukes and the last remnants of mankind, of what once were the Twelve Colonies, will finally be wiped out. I used to believe that too but now I don't, not any more.

That is the problem. The Commander, the President and even Lee, all of them are still convinced that it is as simple as that, that we are just fighting for our survival. They still believe that when the end comes we won't even feel it and they don't realize that it is much worse than that because the cylons no longer want to kill us... or at least not all of us. Dying I can take.

Hell, I'm a frakking viper pilot!

I may be good, I may be the best, but I know that chances are that it is still just a matter of time before my luck runs out. More than ninety percent of viper pilots in times of war don't get to retire or be promoted out of the cockpit and I know it, just like I know that survival doesn't always have to do with talent or skill... though those things certainly help. The thing is that even though we try to convince ourselves that we do what we do because we are the best of the best and all that crap, the truth is that at the end of the day we are just cheap cannon fodder and if we take a hit chances are we are dead... of course that is not the problem. I made my peace with the fact that I'm going to die a very long time ago but the thing is that --as cliched as it sounds-- there are worse fates than death.

**_That_** is what scares the crap out of me and it is also what this is all about.

I try to bring myself back to the present but it's not that easy. I know that allowing my mind to wander is a good way to get myself killed, especially when I'm in the cockpit, but right now I'm **_not_** in the cockpit and between the memories, the pain and the fever --to say nothing of the drugs Cottle is pumping into me which are making me queasy-- I'm having a hard time trying to stay focused and I really don't have the energy to try to fight off the Old Man on top of everything else, though I do know better than to let him see that. He may not be my enemy but he is pissed, he has every reason to be, and --even though he seems to have forgiven me for having gone back to Caprica in the first place-- I know things are still far from normal between us.

I'm still struggling to keep myself together, determined to keep trying to fend off the Commander's questions to the best of my ability for as long as I can --not that that is likely to do me much good-- when all of a sudden I get an unexpected reprieve when Cottle says, "that's enough for now," and the truth is that I'm incredibly grateful for the interruption. 

Even though I know I'm **_not_** off the hook, even though I know there's no way the Old Man is going to let this go any time soon and that at most I'll have a couple of days to regroup --in fact that's more likely to turn out to be only a couple of hours-- right now I'll take any break I can get.

I'm beginning to allow myself to relax, to believe that the worst is behind me --at least for now-- when Helo says, "but there's one thing I still don't understand, Kara: what did Sharon mean when she said that Leoben had told you that you were special, that you have a destiny?"


	7. Chapter 7

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 7  
(Adama's POV)

"Care to repeat that question, lieutenant?" I ask, before turning my attention back toward the bed where I can't help but see the look of fear on Kara's face, a look that is obviously **_not_** missed by Lieutenant Agathon.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"I didn't ask you to apologize, lieutenant. I asked you to repeat that question," I remind him.

"I asked her what Sharon meant when she said that Leoben had told her she was special, sir," he says, clearly uncomfortable with the whole situation and throwing an apologetic look at Kara.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Agathon. Now, Lieutenant Thrace, care to answer that question?"

"I don't know, sir," she flat-out lies and I know that that is **_not_** a good sign.

"Don't give me that crap. What was the cylon talking about?" I push, wondering what the frak it is that I've stumbled on.

"When I interrogated Leoben back on the _Geminon Carrier_ he said some things that had nothing to do with the questions he was being asked. What Sharon said was related to that," she says without really explaining anything.

"What did he say?"

"He was just frakking with my head, sir, that's all."

"What did he say, lieutenant?" I insist.

"With all due respect, sir, that's personal."

"Not any more."

"He said that I have a destiny, that I'm special, that they've been watching me, that they know who I am," whispers Kara after hesitating for a few seconds and all of a sudden I am reminded of just how shaken she sounded when she first told me that Leoben had guessed her callsign. At the time I rationalized the whole incident away by telling her that he had probably heard it on a wireless, that it didn't mean anything, but --even though that remains the most logical explanation-- I'm beginning to suspect that there was a lot more to his words than I was led to believe.

"And what else?" I push, all but certain that there is more to it than that.

"That was it, sir."

"Don't lie to me, lieutenant. If that were it you would **_not_** have kept his comments to yourself," I point out, knowing that what she's told me so far is **_not_** what's making her this nervous.

"As I said, he was just frakking with my head, just like you warned me he would," she insists, though I can see that she doesn't really believe her own words.

"Yes, I told you that he would probably try to mess with your head but I also told you that the problem with that particular model wasn't so much that it lied but rather that it mixed lies with truths," I remind her. "You've told me the lies and now I want to know what the truths were."

"He knew things about me, things he had no business knowing," she finally admits and I can see how much telling me even that much has cost her and that bothers me, especially because the only reason I can think of for her reluctance to come clean is that what the cylons know about her is something I **_don't_** know, something she's never told me about... something she doesn't want me to know. I thought we had left all these secrets behind when she told me the truth about Zak's death but apparently we haven't and that is something I am determined to put an end to once and for all... whether she wants to or not.

"And that brings us back to my original question: what did he say, lieutenant, what did he know that he had no business knowing?" I insist, wondering just how far I should be pushing this. I need some answers here, there's no denying that, but at the same time I know we are getting dangerously close to the point in which Kara could actually be accused of disobeying a direct order by refusing to answer and with Lee, Cottle and Lieutenant Agathon here there's no way I could ignore something like that. The problem is that sending her to the brig is unlikely to do me much good and I know it.

"He told me that he had a soul, that he could see patterns... and that I was damaged."

"Damaged?"

"Yes," she whispers, not looking up.

"There must have been more to it than that," I say, wondering what it was that Leoben meant by that and why it hit Kara so hard, knowing that that word had to mean **_something_** to her.

"It..."

"Don't even try it, Starbuck. I want an answer," I warn her, smelling yet another evasive and deciding to nip it in the bud.

"He said I was special, said that my mom believed that suffering was good for the soul... it had nothing to do with their plans or anything like that, that's why I didn't say anything about it. He was just trying to frak with my head, that was all," she insists, though I'm not sure whether she is trying to convince me or herself.

"He obviously did more than try. What were his exact words?" I ask, having had more than enough of these games and knowing that, even after all this time, she still remembers.

Kara looks up at me at that and for a moment I wonder if maybe I've pushed things too far but I need to know and the truth is that up until now this whole thing just doesn't seem to make any sense at all... especially Kara's reaction to Leoben's words because as far as I can tell those words sound like more of the cylons' usual pseudo-mystical crap.

"He said that I was born to a woman who believed that suffering was good for the soul so I suffered... that life is a testament to pain and it surrounds me like a bubble but... I can't, I'm sorry, sir," she says, closing her eyes and I can see that she means it but at the same time I'm still reluctant to let this go. I know that sooner or later we are going to have to get this over with and, based on what I've seen here so far, I have to say that I don't think putting it off is going to make this any easier.

I am still trying to figure out what my next move should be, if I should keep pushing or if maybe the time has come for me to try to find a way to back down when the decision is taken out of my hands as Cottle interrupts us again.


	8. Chapter 8

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 8  
(Kara's POV)

"Okay, that's enough, I want everyone out of here, now!" growls Cottle but as soon as I make a move to get out of bed he glares at me and adds, "**_not_** you, lieutenant."

"You said 'everyone'," I point out.

"I'm sorry, doctor, but I do need an answer," insists the Old Man.

"Not right now," says Cottle, refusing to back down, and I decide that maybe staying here for a while is not such a bad idea after all.

"When?"

"Give me a few minutes and then we'll talk. There are some things I'd like to discuss with my patient first."

As soon as the Old Man, Lee and Helo are out of the room --or at least on the other side of the frakking curtain-- Cottle turns his attention back to me.

"He will be back, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes," I say, not particularly happy about the reminder.

"So, care to tell me exactly what that cylon did to you?" he asks.

"Other than remove a bullet, you mean?"

"Don't play games with me, Starbuck."

"I don't know, okay? When I first asked him about it he told me that he had had to go back in the middle of the night due to some internal bleeding but then when I heard him talking to the other cylon he mentioned something about the fact that he was waiting for some lab results from some samples of my ovaries," I growl, not even wanting to think about it.

"But you don't know the extent of it?"

"Not really... and to tell you the truth I don't particularly want to."

"Well, that's just too bad because we are going to find out," he says.

"Is that really necessary?"

"Yes."

"So what are you going to do?" I ask, trying hard to keep the fear out of my voice, though the truth is that I'm not looking forward to more poking and prodding, far from it.

"Nothing as awful as you are thinking," says the doc, with something that comes as close to a reassuring smirk as I've ever seen on his face. "First I would like to do an ultrasound in a few days --once I'm sure the infection is under control and the swelling has gone down a little-- and then, depending on how that goes, maybe I'll run some additional tests, just to be on the safe side, though going by what you've told me I think chances are that they just took a biopsy and if that's the case you should be fine. The way I see it, it really wouldn't have made sense for them to do anything more invasive than that if they wanted to be able to breed you in the first place, especially because harvesting a woman's eggs is a complicated procedure that has to be closely monitored and done at a specific time. In other words, just cutting you open and yanking your ovaries out in the middle of the night would **_not_** have done them any good, not to mention that it wouldn't have made sense for them to do something like that if they had already captured you and had no reason to believe that you would be going anywhere."

"Good," I say, trying hard not to cringe at the mental image.

"Now, about what you **_didn't_** want to tell the Commander..."

"It's nothing," I growl, really wishing that he would let it go.

"Yeah, right... and that 'nothing' wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the sixteen broken bones and seventeen fractures I found by going over your x-rays that are unaccounted for in your medical file, broken bones I'm all but certain predate your admittance to Flight School when you were eighteen, would it?"

"Sixteen?" I ask.

"All of your fingers, the ulna in your left arm, both the ulna and radius in your right arm --and one of those shows signs of two distinct fractures, though I can't be absolutely sure if that is because it was broken twice or if it is because it was broken in two places-- and three ribs."

"Three?"

"Two on your left side and one on your right side," he confirms.

"I thought it was just two," I mutter. I remember trying to curl up on myself as my mom kept kicking me time and time again when she broke those but the other one does come as a bit of a shock and I'm trying to figure out when that happened.

"Nope... the question is how could you possibly have missed the fact that you had a broken rib in the first place," he says, almost casually.

"I don't know, I just did," I growl, wishing that he would just leave me alone but knowing that there's no way that's going to happen now.

"What, you were so used to pain that something as minor as a broken bone completely escaped your notice?"

"How long have you known?" I ask, not really daring to look at him though I am oddly reassured by the familiar sarcasm in his voice. Sarcasm I can deal with, what I really can't stand is pity.

"Since you crashed on that moon. I pretty much had to x-ray you from head to toe to make sure there were no additional injuries at the time," he explains. "So I'm guessing that's what the cylon meant when he said that you were born to a woman who believed in suffering."

I nod at that, knowing that there's no point in trying to deny it, though that doesn't mean I'm happy about any of this.

"And, going by your reaction, I take it that the Old Man and Apollo don't have a clue about any of this... or at least they didn't until today, right?" he asks, almost rhetorically.

I shake my head in response, not really knowing what to say as I try to wrap my mind around what this whole thing is going to mean and the truth is that no matter how I look at it, it's a frakking mess.

"You do realize that you are going to have to tell them, don't you?"

I just glare at him at that, even though I do realize that he has a point, that they are not going to let this go and neither will Helo. The three of them are just too damn stubborn for that and I know it.

The problem is that while I know I have to tell them I don't know **_how_** to do it. My past is not something I talk about, not ever. As far as I'm concerned it's over and done with but people just don't get that. Besides, it's really none of their frakking business, though I do know better than to try to tell the Old Man something like that and that means that I'm basically stuck.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, okay, I know this doesn't work with what we've seen so far in the current season... that's why this is AU. In addition to that I have to say that there are a couple of things in what we've seen so far of season 3, and late season 2, that as far as I'm concerned don't seem to make much sense, **_especially_** in those plot lines having to do with babies and human --or cylon-- reproduction.

I also wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this (and maybe, dare I say it, reviewing). I really appreciate it,

Alec


	9. Chapter 9

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1_**

Chapter 9  
(Cottle's POV)

"Would you mind telling me what that was all about?" growls Bill as soon as he sees me and I know this will probably get ugly, especially because Captain Adama and Lieutenant Agathon are still here and I don't think asking them to leave would be a good idea. Simply put, they already know too much and that means that the best way to keep what I'm going to say confined to this room is to give them the full picture.

"It was about you upsetting my patient and me not wanting to deal with the fallout. I did warn you not to push it," I remind him.

"She has been concealing information for weeks. She should have reported what Leoben had told her right after she questioned him. If there is a reason why the cylons have taken a special interest in her I have a right to know!" he exclaims, obviously more than a little frustrated.

"Yes, but you know Starbuck's never been good at playing by the rules and the bottom line is that you were attempting to interrogate her while she was stuck in a hospital bed a few days after she escaped from a medical facility in which she was held captive and experimented on," I point out before going on. "Now, I'm not one for coddling my patients and you know it but right now chances are that that girl is at least somewhat traumatized and until we have a better idea of just what it is that we are dealing with here we are going to have to be careful, otherwise we could end up with an even bigger mess in our hands. Besides, we **_are_** talking Starbuck here and you should know by now that getting her on the defensive is the best way to ensure that you will get absolutely nowhere with her."

"This can't wait," he insists.

"And it doesn't have to," I say, knowing that that **_will_** get his attention.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I may be able to shed some light on what that cylon meant, even if I don't have all the details."

"Tell me what you can," he says and I know that is **_not_** a request.

"Well, one of the things I wanted to do when I told you to leave was to ask her to allow me to disclose some details of her medical file. She wasn't happy about it but eventually she agreed... mostly because she knew you were not going to back down and I convinced her that hearing some of these things from me would give you a chance to digest them before you start badgering her."

"Her file?"

"Yes, I have a detailed medical file from the moment she entered flight school, as I do with all pilots, you know that."

"And...?"

"And what's interesting is what's not in that file."

"I'm afraid I'm not following you, doctor, what's **_not_** in that file?" asks the Old Man, sounding rather puzzled.

"Exactly. You see, I have a detailed file on her from the time she was eighteen years old and yet when I took a series of x-rays after she crashed on that moon I found evidence of at least seventeen old fractures that were not mentioned in it."

"How can that be?"

"Well, the most logical explanation would be that those bones were broken **_before_** she was admitted to Flight School, though I have to say that even for the most rambunctious and accident prone child, seventeen broken bones are probably about a dozen too many. In fact I would go so far as to say that a good rule of thumb is that when you start counting a child's fractures by the dozen chances are that there is a problem."

"What are you suggesting, doctor?"

"I'm not 'suggesting' anything. I'm telling you that chances are that those were anything but accidents, a fact that would also explain that cylon's words about her having been born to a woman who believed that suffering was good for the soul and why she was so reluctant to share what he had said in the first place, not to mention that that would also explain why that rambling nonsense bothered her so much."

"So you are saying what, that someone deliberately hurt her, that her mother deliberately hurt her?" asks Bill, the disbelief clear in his voice and I know I'm going to have to tread carefully here because even though he is not usually prone to shooting the messenger, well, somehow I don't think I'm dealing with his usual rational self.

"But couldn't those fractures be the result of her having been involved in some sort of accident?" jumps in Apollo, apparently still determined to go looking for a prettier explanation.

"Not really. Given the pattern of those breaks I would say that a single accident is **_not _**a viable explanation. In fact the distribution of those breaks is pretty much consistent with what you would expect to find in a case of child abuse. Besides, seeing how she all but confirmed my suspicions a couple of minutes ago, I would say that the whole point is basically moot."

"What kind of injuries are we talking about?" asks Bill rather quietly, sounding almost resigned and I'm glad to see that at least **_one_** of them is starting to move past the denial... the problem is that I know he is still not going to be happy about what I'm going to tell him.

"For starters all ten of her fingers were broken, probably simultaneously as all breaks are basically in a straight line, suggesting that something heavy was dropped on them. That is the most disturbing one, though if that were the extent of it I **_wouldn't_** have ruled out the possibility of an accident. The problem is that in addition to that I have also found evidence of fractures on three of her ribs --one of which she apparently wasn't even aware of-- and both of her forearms. In fact I suspect that the right one was broken twice if not three times and the pattern of those breaks would seem to suggest that at least some of those may have been the result of her using her arms to try to shield herself or to try to break a fall, which could also explain why there are three fractures in her right arm and only one in her left: because she is not left-handed."

"What?" asks the commander, still struggling to wrap his mind around what he is being told.

"And that's just based on what I can tell, on those injuries that were serious enough to make it possible for me to identify them clearly even now. You have to remember that cracked bones and hairline fractures may not show up in x-rays ten to twenty years after the fact, to say nothing of soft tissue damage so I can't even begin to give you an estimate when it comes to cuts and bruises, concussions, first and even second degree burns... the list goes on. Of course, I'm just guessing about that and I know how you feel about guessing so it would be possible for you to try to argue that what those x-rays revealed might have been the extent of it but..."

"But you don't think that is the case," he finishes for me.

"Not really, in fact I believe that broken bones were the exception rather than the rule and if that is the case then this is just the tip of the iceberg."

"But why didn't she ever say anything?"

"Who knows? I mean, she is Starbuck and I gave up on trying to figure out why she does what she does a long time ago," I say, though I do have my suspicions and for the most part they all boil down to the fact that she is Starbuck and Starbuck isn't 'weak'... and if that is the case then the fact that this has come out will probably throw her for a loop.

"But how could the cylons possibly have known about something like this?" asks Bill.

"I don't know and --before you barge in there asking questions-- I don't think she does either."

"I still want to talk to her."

"Talk, yes, question, no. Not until we have a better idea of just what it is that we are dealing with," I warn him.

"Very well," he says before disappearing behind the curtain, freeing me to turn my attention back to Lieutenant Agathon.

"Now, lieutenant, I think it's time for us to have a little talk."

"Sir?"

"You have been with her pretty much from the moment she escaped from that farm, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. That means you get to tell me **_exactly_** how she has been doing."

He hesitates for a moment, throwing a worried look at Captain Adama and I realize that he is at least somewhat uncomfortable at the thought of speaking in front of him. That is not good, it means that this is probably going to be as bad as I fear but the truth is that right now it can't be helped. Yes, this goes well beyond what Starbuck said I could tell them but seeing how I won't be doing the telling here we can safely overlook that little fact... and the bottom line is that I think Apollo should know because he is her closest friend and my gut is telling me that she is going to need him.

"When she first got out she was a mess but after a couple of hours she managed to pull herself together somehow," says Lieutenant Agathon. "Then after we came back she was trying hard to pretend that everything was fine, that nothing had happened and I didn't want to push it. I knew she was hurt and I knew she was hurting and I knew she should probably have said something about it but it was her call and I couldn't tell anyone, not without getting her in trouble for keeping quiet in the first place and the truth is that at the time I wasn't sure she could take it. That's why I decided to keep an eye on her as best I could and then today, when I realized that there was a problem, that she was actually getting worse, I brought her in."

"That bad, uh?" I say, reading between the lines.

"So what happens now?" asks Apollo.

"I'm not sure. On the one hand I am afraid that if I try to keep her confined to sickbay for as long as I should she is going to go crazy and take half of my staff with her but on the other I just don't trust her to do as she is told, to say nothing of the fact that the conditions in the crew's quarters are not exactly ideal for bed rest," I reply, knowing that I have to be careful as to how I play my hand here.

"How long are we talking about?"

"At least a week," I say.

"One week?"

"That's how long it's going to be before I can even think of clearing her to teach again and I want her to spend that time resting and recovering, **_not_** gallivanting all over the ship. I don't want her pushing too hard and ending back here in a matter of days just because she is too proud and too stubborn to listen to her own body when it tells her that enough is enough."

"Isn't there another way?" asks Lieutenant Agathon, wincing in sympathy at the thought, and I know that is my cue.

"Well, if I could trust her to come back when she is supposed to I would probably allow her a couple of hours a day out of here to give her a chance to clear her head and unwind but I would have to be sure that she won't overdo it," I hint.

"Maybe we could take turns going with her to the mess or something like that. That way we could make sure she comes back when she is supposed to," suggests Apollo, looking at Lieutenant Agathon who nods in response.

"No detours?" I ask.

"No detours," he promises.

"That could work," I say after pretending to think it over for a while, even though what they are suggesting is precisely what I was hoping for. The truth is that I don't want that girl putting up any more walls than she absolutely has to and the best way to keep her from doing that is by getting her to believe that her friends talked me into allowing them to spring her for a couple of hours a day against my better judgment rather than letting her know that her spending time with them is **_exactly_** what the doctor ordered.

Sure, I know I should probably tell Apollo and Lieutenant Agathon the truth but I know Starbuck and the bottom line is that I **_really_** don't have much faith in the ability of either of these clowns to keep anything from her.


	10. Chapter 10

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 10  
(Adama's POV)

As I walk past the curtain I can see Kara lying on that bed with her eyes closed and chewing on her lower lip as she struggles to get her breathing under control. It takes her a moment to register my presence and I take advantage of that opportunity to study her but as soon as she looks up at me I find myself wondering what the frak it is that I think I'm doing here. I can tell that she is nervous, in fact she seems to be downright terrified, and the truth is that I don't know what to do about any of this. On the one hand I want to set her mind at ease and tell her that everything is going to be fine but on the other there's no denying that I'm still mad at her. I'm angry because she lied to me, I'm angry because she didn't trust me but that anger vanishes the second I realize that she is wringing her hands, her fingers. That's when it hits me, when Cottle's words suddenly come back to me. He said that every one of those fingers had been deliberately broken. When he said that those were just words to me, they weren't something real, but now that I can see her hands...

I'm still trying to organize my thoughts when I realize that she has noticed what I'm looking at and she is pulling her hands away, trying to hide them under the covers. Knowing that I have to do **_something_** I reach out and grab one of them, marveling at how delicate it feels... especially because 'delicate' is most definitely **_not_** the first word that comes to my mind when I think of her.

"Don't," I say, not letting go. "Why didn't you tell me?" I ask.

"It never came up," she lies.

"You never **_brought_** it up... not unless you were waiting for me to ask about it specifically," I point out, knowing that the opportunity was there, that she should have told me what Leoben had said and she was deliberately **_avoiding_** the subject.

"It was nothing," she insists.

"No, it wasn't. What happened?" I ask, still holding on to her hand, still running my thumb over the back of her fingers even though I can see that the fact that I **_haven't_** let go is making her more than a little uncomfortable.

"My mom caught me at my dad's piano a few months after he left... she slammed the lid on my hands," she whispers, looking down and for a moment I see red. I remember the decommissioning ceremony, I remember asking why we as a people deserved to be saved. That is something I've asked myself more than once since the attacks and the truth is that I still haven't been able to come up with an answer... especially not when I find myself being confronted with things like this.

"How old were you?" I hear myself ask, even though I know it doesn't really matter, even though I know that the answer won't change anything, that it won't make this right and it certainly won't make it any easier for me to accept.

"Eight."

"I'm sorry," I say, just trying to fill in the silence, though somehow I know those are the wrong words.

"It wasn't your fault, sir," she replies, still refusing to meet my eyes.

"Kara, look at me," I say, being careful to use her name, letting her know that right now I'm **_not_** her CO and that that is **_not_** an order.

She does so reluctantly.

"You know you can talk to me, don't you?" I ask, well aware of the fact that we still have some fences to mend here, especially after I lied to her and she found out about it. Sure, we did a fair share of rebuilding back on Kobol but that doesn't mean we don't have a long way to go.

She nods but she still doesn't say anything and the truth is that right now I don't know how to reach her but at the same time I'm not willing to let this go.

The thing is that even though I have a million questions I would like to ask her, I know now is not the time for me to do that. Sure, I could **_order_** Starbuck to answer them but unfortunately that doesn't mean I can order Kara to trust me. Those are two very different things and I have to be careful because I can see that she is scared and I don't even know why... not really. In fact there is just too much I don't know, too much I don't understand, and that is precisely the problem, that is what is making it all but impossible for me to come up with some sort of strategy to deal with this situation... and there is no denying that this is indeed a **_situation_**, one I'm ill equipped to handle.

I love Kara like a daughter --a particularly rebellious, stubborn and independent daughter-- but now I am suddenly beginning to realize that there is a whole side of her past I was totally unaware of, a side that was hinted at by countless little things I had dismissed over the years, things like her response when I first told her to be careful when talking to Leoben. When I warned her that he would probably try to mess with her head she shrugged off my concerns by telling me that her mom had always said that there was nothing in there anyway. At the time I wrote that comment off as nothing more than a joke, as an attempt to lighten the mood only now I'm beginning to realize that there was probably a lot more to it than that, especially because I lost count a long time ago of just how many times I've heard Kara refer to herself as a screw-up, of how many times I've heard her put herself down. I never really gave it much thought, she always seemed too cocky for me to take those words seriously but now I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should have been paying more attention, if maybe there was more to those words than I was willing to see.

What I do know, however, is that Cottle was right when he warned me that until we have a better idea of just what it is that we are dealing with here we are going to have to be careful or we could easily end up with an even bigger mess in our hands. That is not a chance I'm willing to take, not with Kara's well-being on the line, so I do the only thing I can under the circumstances: I kiss her forehead, tell her that we will talk about it later and I promise her that even though things are not fine, they are going to be and then I reluctantly walk away.

I wish I could stay, I wish there were something I could say or do to make this better but I know there isn't and the truth is that I have too much to think about and that means that right now my best bet is to withdraw, to live to fight another day. The bottom line is that I know that what I need here is a strategy but I also know that coming up with one would require a far cooler head than the one I have now because the truth is that right now I'm having a hard time trying to see anything but my 'daughter' as an eight year-old girl nursing ten broken fingers. Before I can do anything else I have to get my emotions under control, that is a fact, and I also have to come up with some intelligence to at least know what it is that I'm up against.

Of course, the problem is that I know that intelligence is **_not_** likely to just walk in the door, that there is no way Kara is going to volunteer that information and that means that I'm going to have to go looking for it elsewhere. In other words I'm going to have to interrogate Cottle as he is the only one I can think of who might have as much as a clue as to how to deal with any of this... unfortunately he is also the only person on this ship I can't **_order_** to tell me a damn thing and that means that I have yet another battle in my hands, though this one at least I know how to handle.


	11. Chapter 11

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 11  
(Kara's POV)

A few seconds after the Old Man leaves Lee and Helo walk in and, while Helo stays close to the curtain, Lee approaches my bed and I can barely keep myself from groaning. I feel like I'm on display here and I really wish they would just go away but I know that's not going to happen.

"Hey," says Lee.

"Hey," I reply, not really knowing what to say and wondering what's coming next.

"So?" he asks, in what has to be the dumbest excuse for a conversation ever.

I just shrug my shoulders at that.

"How are you doing?" he finally manages to ask.

"Could be worse, though I'll be a lot happier once Cottle lets me out of here," I say, trying to keep things safe.

"Yeah, well, about that, I think he is planning to keep you here for a while."

"I know, any idea as to how long?"

"About a week."

"**_WHAT?!_**" I exclaim. I mean, I know he had mentioned something about wanting to keep me here for a few days but this is ridiculous.

"He told us something that basically amounted to the fact that he doesn't really trust you to do as you are told, I don't know what could possibly have given him that idea," he says, rather sarcastically and I just glare at him. "Anyway, he seems to want to keep you where he can actually keep an eye on you."

"Great," I mutter, wondering what am I going to have to do to get my ass kicked out of here.

"The good news is that we managed to talk him into allowing you a couple of hours of freedom a day as long as we stay with you."

"I don't need a frakking babysitter."

"It's not our call, Kara, we just thought you might enjoy the freedom but if you'd rather stay here 24/7..." he trails off.

"That's not fair. I hate it here," I growl, knowing that I'm pretty much caught between a rock and a hard place and seriously suspecting that the doc has something up his sleeve... not to mention that this gives him something to blackmail me with.

"I know but I think Cottle is just trying to be careful."

"More like he is frakking trying to get even because I didn't tell him what had happened," I mutter.

"Okay, so there's that too... and he is not the only one."

"Don't start, Lee," I warn him.

"Oh, I am so starting. I thought I was your friend."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You are supposed to **_trust_** your friends," he reminds me.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really want me to make you a list?"

"Not particularly," I concede, not wanting to go down that particular road, at least not now.

"You are lucky that we only have five minutes otherwise..."

"Five minutes?"

"Yeah, Cottle said something about you needing your rest."

"It's not that bad," I point out, though the truth is that I'm somewhat relieved by the knowledge that this conversation won't drag on forever... especially because I suspect that that five minute limit has a lot to do with Lee's willingness to avoid certain issues for the time being. Now if only I could figure out how to get him to avoid them **_permanently_**, but I know that's not going to happen, I know sooner rather than later he is going to start pushing and so will the Old Man so I might as well enjoy their reluctance while it lasts.

"Yes, well, after that stunt you pulled can you blame him for wanting to play it safe? I mean, when I think back to Kobol..."

"It was nobody's business but my own. Besides, I wasn't hurt anywhere near as bad as the Old Man and he was down there with us," I remind him.

"That's not the point. This has nothing to do with my dad, Kara, it has to do with the fact that I can't watch your back if you don't tell me what the frak is going on. If you are not at a hundred percent I need to know about it."

"I can take care of myself."

"Usually, yes, right now, not really... not to mention that you could easily have ended up jeopardizing someone else just because you were being stubborn," he growls, slipping into CAG mode, even though we both know that that is **_not_** what this is about.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Do you really expect me to believe that if Helo hadn't realized that you were sick you would have told me that you were not fit to fly CAP today?"

"Well, no, but..."

"And what do you think would have happened if the cylons had shown up while you were out there?"

"Come on, Lee..." I start but he interrupts me again.

"And what about Kobol? I trusted you to watch **_my_** back... are you honestly going to tell me that the fact that you were hurt didn't interfere with your ability to do that?" he pushes and I know he is just playing dirty.

"What do you want me to say?" I all but yell at him.

"I don't know, okay? I just want you to frakking trust me!"

"I do, it's not..." I trail off, not quite knowing how to explain.

"It's not what?" he prods.

"It's not about trust," I whisper.

"You have to be frakking kidding me! **_Not_** about trust?" he yells.

"Um, sir, remember what Cottle said about upsetting her," Helo interrupts us, taking a step forward from his spot near the curtain.

"I'm not going to frakking break, Helo," I growl at him. Even though there's a part of me that is definitely grateful for the interruption the fact remains that I **_don't_** want them walking on eggshells around me, though I suspect I'm going to have to get used to it, whether I want to or not.

"No, but Cottle may end up breaking us... or he could change his mind about allowing us to get you out of here," he points out. Sure, leave it to Helo to be the frakking voice of reason.

"We **_will_** talk about it later," growls Lee.

"Funny, that's pretty much what your dad said... and I would tell you that I'm looking forward to it but, well, we both know that I'm not so why bother," I say, trying to keep him at arm's length and failing miserably.

"I don't care... did Zak know?" he blurts out, out of nowhere.

"Know what?" I ask, wondering what the frak he is talking about.

"Did you ever tell him about your mom?"

I shake my head at that even as I let out a resigned sigh. So much for him avoiding the subject.

"You mean you never told him? For frak's sake, Kara, why not? You were going to frakking marry him!" he explodes.

"Because it didn't matter, because it's in the past and telling him wouldn't have changed a frakking thing... not to mention that it was none of his frakking business!" I say, wishing he would back off but he just gives me this puzzled look... which is kind of funny seeing how I am the one who doesn't have a clue as to what the big frakking deal about me not telling Zak is supposed to be.


	12. Chapter 12

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 12  
(Cottle's POV)

"So, how did it go?" I ask as soon as the commander steps into what passes for my office.

"As well as could be expected," he says.

"That bad, uh?"

"Let's just say that this is not a situation I ever thought I'd find myself having to deal with."

"And what makes this a 'situation' for you to deal with in the first place?"

"She is one of **_my_** people," he reminds me.

"So you are saying that it never occurred to you that one of the more than a thousand people serving under your command could possibly have been abused? You are not that naive," I push, knowing that that is **_not_** the problem and wondering what is it going to take to get him to admit it.

"You know that's not it."

"Okay, so the problem is **_not_** that it is someone under your command but rather that it's Starbuck," I point out, well aware that if it had been anyone else this revelation would hardly have merited a footnote in their personnel file.

He just glares at me at that.

"Well, as long as you are willing to admit it to yourself," I say, trying to keep myself from shaking my head at his reaction. "And, for what it's worth, my advice is to give it time and to take things one step at a time... though in the meantime it probably wouldn't hurt to let her know that you are not mad."

"But I am."

"Fine, then you should let her know that you are not mad at her," I say, openly rolling my eyes at that.

"She should have told me what Leoben had said," he insists.

"True, but that is **_not_** what this is about --not any more than it is about it being 'someone under your command'-- and you know it. Besides, you have to remember that as bad as this is for you, it's probably a hundred times worse for her."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because chances are that that girl has been running from her past for the last ten years or so and I seriously doubt that she was ready to have that past catch up with her today. She was willing to risk a reprimand rather than tell you about it, that should tell you something."

"Well, I know now."

"Yes, and that brings us to the question of what do you intend to do with that knowledge."

"That's easy: find myself some answers," he growls.

"You actually expect me to believe that you didn't question her?"

"Not much. You had warned me not to try to interrogate her but..." he trails off.

"But you did ask a couple of questions anyway," I finish for him, not particularly surprised by that revelation.

"Yes."

"And I take it that her answers weren't much help?"

"Not really. I thought that if only I could get to the facts things would make some sort of sense. It didn't turn out that way," he admits.

"So what did you ask?"

"About her hands, about what happened."

"And?"

"And apparently her mother found her playing the piano and slammed the lid on them... she was eight."

"That would do it, though I suspect that she may have instinctively tried to pull her hands away in the last second, even if the whole thing happened so fast that she wasn't aware of it, otherwise that lid would almost certainly have fallen on the back of her hands, probably close to her wrists, not on her fingers," I say, trying to keep myself from wincing at the thought.

"Does that matter?"

"Not really, though the damage would almost certainly have been less extensive, but that's precisely the point: this all happened a very long time ago and if you want to help her you have to focus on what it did to her rather than on what was done to her."

"I'm afraid I'm not following you."

"It's just that even though you may want to go back in time and keep her safe that's not how it works and you know it..."

"I'm not..." he begins but I interrupt him.

"Yes, you are and that's perfectly normal but that is **_not_** the point. The point is that while knowing the details will probably help you get an idea of just what it is that you are dealing with, in the end those details are not likely to be all that relevant because what you are dealing with here are basically old wounds and when it comes to those the 'how' doesn't really matter."

"Care to explain that?" he asks.

"Well, from a medical perspective, when treating someone who has just been injured your top priorities have to be first to keep the patient alive and second to try to minimize the long term consequences of that injury, however when you are dealing with an old wound --one that has already healed messily on its own-- things are different. With an old wound you no longer have to worry about keeping the patient alive, that's the good news, but the tradeoff is that you no longer have the option of trying to minimize the long term damage either and the only thing you can do is to try to reverse that damage as best you can... and in that regard the nature of the original injury is far less relevant than its consequences. For instance, if a bone was not set properly after being broken, years later how it got to be broken doesn't really matter because the problem is how it healed... and the more scar tissue you have to contend with, the more difficult things are likely to be. That is what you have here and let's just say that in this case the amount of scar tissue you are going to have to cut through if you want to get to the root of the problem is going to be considerable and the whole thing will probably be painful as hell, not to mention that, knowing that girl, you can pretty much count on her fighting you every step of the way."

"So what do you suggest?"

"How should I know? I'm not a shrink and as far as I'm concerned this qualifies as one of those instances in which my job is to keep the patient breathing and more or less in one piece until I can hand her care over to someone who knows what the frak they are doing. That means that at best I may be able to tell you what **_not_** to do but when it comes to what **_should _**be done I don't have a clue... and, seeing how we are fresh out of specialists, we have a problem. In fact the only thing I can tell you is to be careful and to trust your gut. What you can't do is bury your head in the sand and pretend that you don't know what happened to her."

"But I don't know what happened to her! All I know is what you've told me and that is vague at best," he reminds me.

"Yes, and that's something you are just going to have to deal with because the bottom line is that it is too late for you to leave well enough alone. You know and Starbuck knows that you know so you can't even pretend that you don't. One way or another that is going to change things between you and the truth is that there isn't a damn thing you can do to prevent it. The most you can hope to do right now is to try to shape that change."

"That is hardly reassuring."

"It's not supposed to be reassuring, it's supposed to be a damned fact."

"Is there anything else you can tell me about what happened to her?"

"Not really. What I told you about her injuries is what I know, everything else is just guess work and, as I said, which bones were broken and when is not likely to make much of a difference, as for the rest of it, you are just going to have to get Starbuck to trust you."

"Somehow I don't think that's going to be easy."

"Oh, you can bet on that. Starbuck is a stubborn one and you know it, not to mention that she has probably had years of practice when it comes to keeping people at bay but the way things stand you don't really have much of a choice. By the way, I 'allowed' your son and Lieutenant Agathon to get her out of here for a couple of hours a day, hoping that the three of them will manage to move past the worst of the awkward stage before she is cleared to return to duty... you may want to consider the possibility of spending some time with her and trying to do the same."

"You 'allowed' them to get her out of here?"

"Okay, so I let them think that they had talked me into allowing them to go with her to the mess as long as they promised to keep an eye on her while she was out of here," I say and he laughs at that.

"I'll see what I can do."

"Fair enough... and Bill?"

"Yes?" 

"About that punching bag..."

"What punching bag?"

"The one you were going to hit as soon as you walked out of here, remember that you are still recovering and I haven't cleared you to go anywhere near the gym."


	13. Chapter 13

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 13  
(Adama's POV)

I just glare at Cottle at that, even as I walk out of sickbay. The thing is that, seeing how I can't track Kara's mother down and throttle her with my bare hands after beating her to a bloody pulp because the cylons already beat me to it --and in the process allowed her a death that was far less painful than she deserved-- I am left with very few options... especially now that killing a punching bag has also been ruled out, but at the same time I've never been particularly good at doing nothing.

The problem is that I am all too aware of the fact that there is a difference between trusting my instincts and rushing headlong into a situation without thinking things through and this is not a situation we can afford to tackle without a plan. Like Cottle said, this is a mess, one that calls for a specialist's touch, but we are fresh out of specialists. That means that we are left to our own devices and that is where things get complicated because in order to come up with a plan we would need to know what we are up against but we can't get that information without questioning Kara... and we can't safely question Kara without that information.

I'm still thinking about that, trying to figure out how we can hope to deal with this when Lee catches up with me.

"Can we talk?" he asks, rather hesitantly.

I nod and gesture for him to follow me to my quarters. As soon as I close the hatch I turn my attention back to my son.

"How are you doing?" I ask, knowing that this is probably hitting him hard.

"Would you believe me that I don't even know?"

"Yes," I say, feeling pretty numb myself.

"I mean, how could we not know about something like this?"

"I don't know, son, I really don't know."

"She never even told Zak and she was going to frakking marry him!" he exclaims.

"How do you know that?" I ask, somewhat taken aback by that comment.

"I asked her if he knew... she didn't even seem to understand why I thought she should have told him in the first place. It's like the idea of telling him had never even crossed her mind!"

"And that means that you shouldn't take it so personally," I point out, realizing that Lee is on the brink of exploding and trying to defuse the situation.

"Yes, but... I don't know," he says, obviously still trying to wrap his mind around this whole mess.

"I know it's hard but for the time being there is almost nothing we can do. Right now the best thing we can do is to take a step back and to try to calm down. I would also like you and Helo to come see me after your shifts so that we can discuss this. We are in this together and we need to come up with some kind of strategy to deal with it because the one thing we can't afford to do is to be working at cross purposes from each other... and I don't think I have to tell you and Helo to keep this to yourselves."

"Of course," he says, even as he walks out of my quarters, leaving me to try to sort this one out on my own. The problem is that I still don't know what to think about any of this and Lee's revelation hasn't exactly helped matters, in fact it's left me wondering how well I really know Kara... how well **_Zak_** really knew her.

I remember our first meeting shortly before his funeral but mostly I remember her **_at_** the funeral. We were both standing together and yet alone. I felt like an outsider, especially because neither Caroline nor Lee would meet my eyes as they stood on the other side of the chasm that was my son's open grave. In fact Kara was the only one there willing to acknowledge my presence, my grief, so --almost instinctively-- I found myself reaching for her hand and we just stood there, taking comfort from each other as we said our silent goodbyes.

It was after the funeral that Lee confronted me, blaming me for his brother's death and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he was right so I went looking for answers. I didn't find any, of course, but I did learn a lot more about a certain young lieutenant whose career was all but over.

I don't think Kara ever realized in just how much trouble she really was in the aftermath of Zak's death.

That a cadet had been killed in an accident had done very little for the academy's reputation and the fact that the one who had been killed had been **_my_** son had only served to add fuel to the fire by drawing the press's attention to the incident. The higher ups wanted a quick way out of the whole mess and a young flight instructor who had blatantly broken dozens of rules by getting involved with one of her students seemed like the perfect scapegoat but I couldn't let that happen. For some reason I couldn't fully understand I wanted to keep Kara safe so I requested that she be transferred to the Galactica instead.

Sure, at the time there was a lot I didn't know, like the role she had played in that accident --and I can now see that, even if her decision to pass Zak when she should have failed him contributed to what happened, it truly was an accident-- but even though I never got to see her with my son, I never had any reason to doubt the fact that she loved him... not until now and that bothers me.

In a way I feel like I'm back to square one with her, like she is a stranger, though at the same time I can't help but to recognize that a number of things that had never seemed to add up before all of a sudden are beginning to make a disturbing amount of sense. In fact that is one of the most troubling elements of this whole thing: the fact that there **_were_** countless clues, clues I just wasn't willing to see.

Of course, I know that for the time being there are other things that should take precedence, especially because nothing I can do can change the past and that means I have to focus on the things I **_can_** do... or at least that is the theory, though --truth be told-- I can't seem to stop thinking about it. The problem is that, while some applied psychology is obviously a must of command, this mess with Kara does not really fall anywhere near that 'some'.

In addition to that there is also the fact that, while Cottle's revelations concerning Kara's past are deeply disturbing, they are not the only problem I have to contend with, far from it. In fact from a military perspective my top priority should probably be dealing with the intel she brought back regarding the cylons' activities, so maybe I should try to concentrate on that one instead. If nothing else --seeing how this is not an entirely military matter-- I should at least fill Laura in on this. After all, what is the point of having a chain of command if you don't take advantage of it to kick things up or down when the situation calls for it?

* * *

_**Author's notes**_: Hi guys, sorry about the delay. I was having a hard time trying to get the site to allow me to post this... and thank you so much for your reviews, they are really appreciated!

Alec


	14. Chapter 14

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1_**

Chapter 14  
(Laura's POV)

As I sit in my shuttle en-route to the Galactica I can't help but wonder what this is about.

Bill called me less than an hour ago asking me to come over. That in itself was somewhat unusual, especially because protocol dictates that he should have come to me, not the other way around, though at the same time there's no denying that meeting on the Galactica is far more comfortable than meeting on the Colonial One, especially because my ship was never really intended to serve as a command post. The thing is that even though the fact that we are meeting on the Galactica is not entirely unusual, there **_was_** something unusual in Bill's voice when he called me, something that got me to agree to his request right away... not to mention that he was being more than a little cryptic about **_why_** he wanted me there in the first place and that in turn made me more than a little curious.

When he called he told me that there was a 'situation' we had to discuss ASAP. I asked him if there was a problem but he simply repeated that it was a situation. Ever since I hung up I've been trying to figure out what this could possibly be about but the truth is that I am no closer to finding an answer to my questions than I was in the beginning. That is why I'm so relieved when we finally dock and I see that he is waiting for me.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice, Madame President," he greets me as soon as I step down from my shuttle.

"Thanks for the invitation," I reply.

"Maybe we should take this to my quarters."

I follow him and, as soon as he closes the hatch, I decide that I've had enough so I ask, "okay, Bill, I'm here, care to tell me what this is about?"

"Something came up."

"I figured that much," I say, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at him, though I can see that whatever this is about, he is pretty upset.

"It has to do with Caprica," he adds.

"Caprica?"

"Yes, or, to be accurate, with what the cylons are doing back on Caprica."

"Why don't you tell me what you are getting at?" I ask, deciding to cut to the chase, knowing that Bill Adama is usually nothing if not direct and somewhat worried by his sudden reluctance to tell me what this is all about.

"Kara... Lieutenant Thrace is in sickbay," he finally says, catching me totally off-guard, especially because the truth is that I'm not sure what that could possibly have to do with anything.

"Why?"

"Apparently she was shot and captured by the cylons."

"What? When?"

"On Caprica... she managed to escape, obviously, but..." he trails off.

"How could we not know that?"

"Because she is too damn stubborn, that's how... sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"Tell the truth? Let's face it, the fact that she is stubborn is not exactly a secret," I point out.

"Phrase it like that," he corrects me.

"That I believe. So what did she tell you?" I ask, somewhat relieved by the realization that, if nothing else, that little outburst has at least made it possible for us to get past the awkwardness here.

"As I said, she was shot and woke up in what appeared to be some sort of hospital only that 'hospital' turned out to be a front for something she called 'a farm'."

"A farm?" I repeat, not quite knowing what he means by that.

"Basically it was a research facility in which the cylons were conducting experiments on human subjects," he explains.

"What kind of experiments?" I ask, knowing that I'm not going to like the answer.

"They were attempting to impregnate human women... trying to create a generation of hybrids. Unfortunately I don't have all the details. Kara was pretty upset and Cottle was rather reluctant to allow me to question her for the time being but I still felt that this was something you had to be told about right away."

"But Lieutenant Thrace is going to be fine?"

"The doctor seems to think so but the cylons **_did_** operate on her and we won't know for sure until we can figure out exactly what they did."

"Wait, they operated on her?"

"Twice. As far as Cottle can tell the first time they only extracted a bullet, it's the second surgery that remains a mystery," he explains.

"And she didn't tell anyone?" I ask, shaking my head at that.

"Well, Lieutenant Agathon knew some of it, obviously, seeing how he was part of the rescue party, but ever since he came back we have been so focused on his relationship with 'Sharon' that no one even thought to question him about what had happened once Starbuck got there... and he didn't exactly volunteer any information until it became absolutely necessary."

"Necessary?"

"Apparently Kara has developed an infection..." he begins.

"And that in turn landed her in sickbay," I finish for him, putting the pieces together... or at least some of them because somehow I get the feeling that there's a lot more to this story than I'm being told.

"Yes."

"Well, Bill, I have to say that I agree with you."

"About?"

"About that girl being too damn stubborn."

"She is Starbuck," he says, as if that explained everything.

"I guess that's one way of putting it, now the question is what are we going to do about those farms."

"I don't know. In fact, as much as it pains me to admit it, the truth is that I'm not sure there's anything we **_can_** do. The farms are back in the colonies and we are out here but they **_do_** add a new dimension to the cylon threat... and then there is also the fact that if the cylons were to succeed in mass producing hybrids that could turn out to be a major problem in the long run."

"But not in the short term."

"No. As far as we know so far they haven't had much luck and --seeing how pregnancies result in babies, not adults-- even if they had it would still be a couple of decades before those hybrids would actually become a threat. That gives us some time to prepare, not to mention that we **_do_** have one major advantage this time around."

"Okay, I think I'm missing something here," I say, wondering what he means by that.

"Well, even though we know that so far they've managed to create at least one hybrid, that 'success' is here and that will give us a chance to learn from that pregnancy and to study whatever comes out of it."

"And you are hoping that that will give us an edge."

"If nothing else at least I'm hoping that it will enable us to get a better idea of just what it is that we are likely to find ourselves facing in the future. They caught us by surprise with the humanoid models and the truth is that that is **_not_** an experience I care to repeat."

"I agree, though I would still like you to question Lieutenant Thrace about what she found back on Caprica, see what we can learn."

"Oh, believe me, I intend to do that as soon as Cottle allows it," he growls.

"You are angry."

"I don't particularly enjoy being kept in the dark."

"So I've noticed," I say, remembering my time in the brig and knowing that **_that_** is a good candidate for understatement of the year.

"The thing is that right now the cylons have us at a disadvantage and..."

"We have been at a disadvantage from the moment they attacked us but we are still here," I remind him.

"Yes, but that still does nothing to change the fact that while the cylons have managed to successfully infiltrate the fleet we can't possibly hope to return the favor and infiltrate their ranks. The existence of a very limited number of cylon models, something that ideally could one day make it possible for us to be able to identify them at a glance, also means that we don't stand a chance when it comes to infiltrating **_them_**. That also means that our chances to gain some real intelligence about their long term plans will probably be few and far between... and it doesn't help when an officer who has managed to obtain some such information decides to keep it to herself," he mutters and, even though that sounds perfectly reasonable, at least on the surface, deep down I know that's **_not_** what this is about. Oh, I have no doubt as to the fact that Commander Adama is telling me everything he thinks I need to know as the President of the Twelve Colonies but that doesn't mean that **_Bill_** is telling **_me_** everything that is going on.

I think I've come to know him pretty well in these past couple of months and right now I can see that there's something bothering him, something that goes a lot deeper than the fact that the cylons are experimenting on humans back on Caprica or even the fact that Lieutenant Thrace kept that information from him in the first place and I'm determined to find out what that something is. After all, I can honestly say that Bill Adama is not the only one around here who is **_not_** particularly fond of being kept in the dark.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: okay guys, first of all, thanks for reading (and reviewing). Also I know this chapter feels kind of slow. Sorry about that but I had to bring Laura up to speed.

Alec


	15. Chapter 15

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 15  
(Adama's POV)

"I understand that," says Laura, "but while she may have shown some rather poor judgment in failing to report this immediately the truth is that, as you pointed out, this is not really an urgent matter so this delay is unlikely to be relevant in the long run. In fact this information is not something we were actively looking for so what we have is more than what we expected anyway. Besides, she wasn't the only one who was aware of this development and chose not to say anything. Lieutenant Agathon too was aware of what had happened back on Caprica and he too failed to report it."

"Yes, but he wasn't there," I remind her, knowing that even though she has a point, it was Kara who should have said something.

"I'm not trying to defend what Lieutenant Thrace did, all I'm saying is that if Lieutenant Agathon had reported this information immediately this delay could easily have been avoided so it is not entirely fair to place the blame squarely on her shoulders."

"I agree that Helo could have handled the whole thing better but..."

"But that is not what this is really about, is it?" she interrupts me.

"What do you mean?" I ask, somewhat taken aback by that question.

"I mean that I know you and, even though you are not happy about the fact that Lieutenant Thrace kept that information from you in the first place, the fact that she didn't tell you is not what has you this upset."

"No, you are right. I am also angry because in her attempt to keep this from coming out she took a number of stupid chances when she **_really_** should have known better!"

"So the problem is not so much that you are angry but rather that you are worried?" she asks, twisting my words and raising an eyebrow.

"No, I'm angry. She should have received medical attention the moment she came back!" I snap, wondering when I lost control of this conversation... wondering if I was ever in control of this conversation.

"And that is my fault more than it is anyone else's," she points out. "You weren't even there when she came back, I was, and you are right: I should have noticed that there was something wrong with her but I didn't. As for your anger, well, the truth is that --seeing how Lieutenant Thrace is currently in sickbay-- I would say that she is already paying for the consequences of her actions. Now, I'm not going to tell you that she shouldn't have said something sooner because we both know she should have but the truth is that you shouldn't take your anger out on her when you are really mad at yourself."

"I'm not..." I begin but she interrupts me.

"Yes, you are. You are thinking that you should have realized that there was something wrong with her, I know I am, but the bottom line is that Lieutenant Thrace is not responsible for **_our_** failure in that regard."

"She should have said something!" I insist.

"Yes, but as you said, that girl is too damned stubborn... and that's what makes her so special, that's what's kept her alive: the fact that she just doesn't know how to quit."

"Or ask for help for that matter," I mutter, realizing that Laura actually has a point.

"Okay, so there's that too," she says with a hint of a smile.

"I just wish she would trust me."

"And what makes you think that she doesn't?" asks Laura, looking at me and all of a sudden I realize that I have said too much.

"It's nothing," I reply, though I suspect that that is **_not_** going to cut it.

"Somehow I don't think so."

"It has nothing to do with this."

"I don't believe you," she pushes.

"What?"

"I mean, I believe you when you say that it has nothing to do with the cylons' activities, of course, I know you wouldn't lie about something like that but I think it has a lot to do with what has you so upset."

"I'm not lying and it's personal," I reply.

"Yes, and that's probably what Lieutenant Thrace told you about **_why_** she hadn't said anything in the first place. That's what's really bothering you, isn't it? It's not so much what she didn't tell you but why," she says, narrowing her eyes and I know I'm in trouble here.

"She should have told me what had happened... and she should certainly have told me what Leoben had said!"

"Leoben?" she asks, sounding more than a little puzzled.

"It turns out that this incident with the farm is **_not_** the first thing she has decided to keep to herself. Apparently there were also some things that came out while she was questioning Leoben that she conveniently 'forgot' to mention," I explain.

"Care to fill me in?"

"Apparently the cylons have been watching her for some time. For some reason they seem to be convinced that she is special somehow, that she has a destiny of some sort."

"A destiny?" she repeats.

"That's what they said but we don't really know what they mean by that... and apparently neither does she," I say, letting out a resigned sigh.

"But we know this is real?"

"Yes, at least as far as the fact that the cylons have been keeping an eye on her goes. Leoben mentioned some things that proved to her that he wasn't bluffing... and it wasn't just Leoben. Apparently Sharon too said something to that effect back on Caprica."

"And she decided that **_that_** was personal?" asks Laura.

"Yes."

"So what do we know about this 'destiny' of hers?"

"Not as much as I would like," I mutter. "As with the farm, Cottle won't even allow me to question her while she is in sickbay. In fact I found out about it almost by accident."

"That must have been some accident."

"Yes. Basically Lieutenant Agathon asked her what Sharon had meant when she had said that Leoben had told her that she was special."

"I see. Well, Bill, I have to say that I agree that she should have told us about this," says Laura, sounding unusually concerned.

"You seem to be more worried about this than about the farms," I point out, somewhat surprised by that fact.

"As you said, there is nothing we can do about the farms and, as disturbing as the concept behind those may be, the truth is that they don't represent an immediate threat but if the cylons are after Lieutenant Thrace in some way we need to know about it, if for no other reason than to do our best to keep her away from them. I sent her back to Caprica..."

"Do you really expect me to believe that if you had known about this you wouldn't have done that?" I ask.

"To tell you the truth I don't know. We needed that arrow. I believed that then, I believe it now and she was the only person qualified to go because she was the only one who could fly that raider, that hasn't changed, but at the same time it **_was_** extremely dangerous and I knew that the chances that she would be either killed or captured were high."

"In fact she **_was_** captured and almost killed," I remind her.

"Yes, but what I still don't understand is **_why_** she decided to keep what Leoben had told her to herself in the first place," says Laura and I realize that she is not going to let this go.

"I do," I admit after hesitating for a moment.

"You do?"

"Yes."

"And are you going to fill me in any time soon?"

"I think it had to do with **_how_** Leoben proved to her that they had been watching her... it had to do with what he knew about her."

"And what he knew was something you didn't know, wasn't it? It was something that was deeply personal, something she had never told you about, something she never wanted you to know and that's what's really bothering you, isn't it?" she says, putting the pieces together and I know I have no way out of this now.

"Yes, it was about her mother..." I begin but I can't bring myself to say more than that. I trust Laura, I really do, and I am also aware that as the President of the Twelve Colonies she has a right to know everything that is going on here but at the same time I can't bring myself to betray Kara like that.


	16. Chapter 16

**_For notes, warning and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 16  
(Laura's POV)

Okay, I think I'm beginning to understand what this is really about... and if this is about what I think it is then I have to tread carefully here. Commander Adama, the stubborn but rational military man I know I can handle but, as I found out the hard way when I jeopardized Lieutenant Thrace's safety by sending her back to Caprica, the 'papa bear protecting his cub' mode is a different story altogether... and that is what I have here. Sure, she is not his daughter --not in the biological sense of the word anyway-- but in a way that only serves to make matters worse. With his own son Bill has a tendency to go out of his way to prove to the world that there is no preferential treatment but when it comes to his unofficial 'daughter' that is not a concern and that means that he is free to go into an overprotective rampage without having to worry about the possibility of being accused of nepotism... and you **_really_** don't want to be in his path when he does that.

"Her mother hurt her, didn't she?" I ask softly, saying what he obviously can't bring himself to.

"You knew?" he asks, sounding more than a little surprised at that.

"I wasn't sure, not until now, but I suspected that much," I admit.

"How...?"

"As you have pointed out more than once, I'm a school teacher, Bill. I could sit here and tell you that child abuse is something so rare that I have never encountered it before but that would be a lie. The truth is that it is something I've seen more times than I care to remember and it is also something I learned to recognize a very long time ago. Lieutenant Thrace may not be a child but that doesn't change the fact that the signs are unmistakably there."

"And you didn't say anything?"

"It wasn't my place, not to mention that I had no way of knowing that you didn't know."

"Yes, her mother hurt her... badly."

"Meaning?"

"To quote Cottle 'when you start counting a child's fractures by the dozen, chances are that there is a problem'... and he has identified at least seventeen."

"I see," I say, wincing as I remember way too many casts I saw in my years as a teacher, casts I always suspected should not have been necessary. The funny thing is that up until now I had mostly thought of those casts in isolation and I had never really stopped to consider how many of those a single child could collect over the years.

"How could something like this have been allowed to happen?" asks Bill, pulling me out of my musings.

"I don't know... and in the end the how doesn't really matter."

"You said that a teacher would have recognized the signs, so why didn't anyone ever do anything to put an end to it, why didn't any of them ever do anything to protect her?" he pushes, obviously still looking for someone to blame.

"Teachers are only human," I remind him. "Some may not have noticed, others may not have cared... and, even if they did, the sad fact is that by the time a child gets to school more often than not it is already too late."

"Too late?"

"Yes. As I found out the hard way in my second year, the one thing you need if you are going to intervene is a child who is actually willing to come forward but abused children have a hard time trusting anyone to begin with and you only have them for a year. More often than not that is not nearly enough for you to get past their defenses and to get them to open up so there's almost nothing you can do," I explain.

"What happened?" he asks.

"I was young and rather naive... I was also teaching fourth grade at the time and there was a boy in my class who kept 'getting into fights' at home even though he was an only child and he was extremely quiet in school so that picture didn't really add up. I was certain that he was being abused but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get him to talk to me. Eventually, after he showed up one morning with an eye swollen shut and a split lip, I decided to report the situation anyway. Since a report had been filed, a social worker was assigned to the case but he still wouldn't say anything. Nothing came out of it, obviously, except for the fact that two weeks after the investigation was officially closed he came to school with his left arm in a cast. He said that he had fallen but we both knew that was a lie. I'll never forget how he looked at me, as if I were personally responsible... and maybe in a way I was."

"You were only trying to help."

"Yes, but as far as he was concerned that didn't matter. Besides, the truth is that in all but the most serious of cases the foster care system wasn't much of an improvement so unless you suspected that a child's life was literally in danger --and had the evidence to prove it-- the best thing you could do was to pretend not to notice."

"It's just that..."

"That this is not some random stranger but someone you care about?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Well, whatever happened, you have to remember that it probably helped shape Lieutenant Thrace into the woman she is today and, as much as you may not want to admit it, it almost certainly saved her life."

"How can you say that?" asks Bill, sounding utterly horrified at the thought.

"I can say it because it's true. The odds of anyone surviving the cylons' attack were close to one in a million and you know it. If Lieutenant Thrace's past had been different in any significant way then chances are that her life would have followed a different path, at least to some extent. Seeing how even the smallest deviation would probably have resulted in her **_not_** being confined to the brig on board this particular battlestar when that attack took place, I would say that claiming that her past almost certainly saved her life on that day is not too much of a stretch," I point out.

"That still doesn't make it right," he huffs.

"No, it doesn't and I never said that it did but you can't change the past and you know it. Child abuse is an ugly business, believe me, I know, but the truth is that even if she was abused as a child, Lieutenant Thrace is not a little girl any more and you can't treat her as if she were."

"I know that but..."

"But you are still trying to come to terms with this?"

"Yes, and the truth is that I don't understand. I don't understand how this could have been allowed to happen in the first place and I certainly don't understand why she never told me about it."

"As I told you before, abused children don't trust easily... and, to make matters worse, more often than not they are convinced that that abuse is actually justified."

"That's crazy!"

"Is it? Think about it, Bill: child abuse is the ultimate betrayal of trust but it is one that cuts so deep that all too often the betrayed can't even recognize it for what it is. Parents are expected to discipline their children, to teach them right from wrong and children are taught to accept that discipline as a token of love, to respect, honor and obey their parents. That's the way the system is supposed to work but the line between discipline and abuse is not always clear, not even for an adult, so how can a child --one that doesn't even have a frame of reference to begin with-- be expected to know when that line has been crossed, when that so-called 'discipline' has become something else, something that is both unjustified and unjustifiable?"

"But , as you pointed out, Kara is not a child. Besides, while I agree that there may be some instances in which the line between discipline and abuse is not all that clear, that is not what we have here," he insists.

"Actually, Bill, it is. I know it is hard for us to comprehend but you have to keep in mind that children don't have the means to recognize their own abuse for what it is because more often than not that abuse is the only thing they have ever known and therefore they perceive it as being 'normal'. As for the fact that Lieutenant Thrace is not a child, you are absolutely right about that, but in a way you are also wrong because somewhere in there is a scared little girl, one that is probably still convinced that she deserved everything she got because she was 'bad'," I point out, knowing that he is too stubborn to let this go but also knowing that if he wants to get to the bottom of this, if he wants to try to **_reach_** that little girl, Bill really has his work cut out for him. Simply put, if he wants to try to reach that little girl he is going to have to outstubborn Starbuck and that is **_not_** going to be easy, not even for him.


	17. Chapter 17

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 17  
(Adama's POV)

I'm trying to digest what Laura's been telling me but this is not an easy thing for me to come to terms with, far from it.

Sure, on a rational level I know that what she is saying makes sense --perhaps it even makes more sense than I care to contemplate-- but at the same time I don't want to admit what it means as far as Kara is concerned. It's as if in the last couple of hours my whole perception of the woman I love as if she were my daughter had been completely altered and I'm not sure I know what to make out of any of this.

I'm still thinking about that when all of a sudden I remember something else Cottle mentioned: he told me that this required a specialist's touch but that we are fresh out of specialists only --if Laura's words are anything to go by-- that may not be entirely true. Oh, I'm sure a school teacher is not exactly what he had in mind when he said that but I think under the circumstances it is the best we can do. From what I've heard here Laura obviously knows what she is talking about and the bottom line is that I trust her.

In other words, while the resources I have available to me are not exactly the ones I was hoping for, with a little luck they are going to be enough to make do... if nothing else they are certainly a lot closer to what I need than the ones I thought I had at my disposal only a few minutes ago.

"So, what am I supposed to do?" I ask, rather reluctantly, not particularly thrilled at the thought of relinquishing control but knowing that I'm going to have to follow her lead on this one because this is something she is far more familiar with than I am.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Bill? It's not going to be easy, in fact it's going to be harder than you can even imagine, and there can be no turning back," she warns me.

"I don't have a choice. I know and she knows I know, that means that whether I was ready for this or not doesn't really matter because that first step has already been taken and the only thing I can do is to try to move forward."

"Okay but you can't do this as 'The Commander'. If you are going to do this you are going to have to do it as her 'father' and I do mean her full-time father."

"That's going to be a problem," I reply, not even trying to pretend that I don't understand what she is saying but knowing that this is a battlestar and discipline has to be maintained.

"I am aware of that but luckily I don't think you have to worry too much about the possibility of having this spill over to a more public arena or of having Lieutenant Thrace trying to take advantage of the situation. From what I've seen she is a very proud woman and that means that she will almost certainly do everything in her power to keep this quiet."

"I guess I can live with that," I say, knowing that I don't really have much of a choice because, as everyone keeps reminding me, there can be no turning back.

"And you are also going to have to open up to her... and yes, Bill, that does mean that you are going to have to talk about your feelings."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that I know you. You are not a demonstrative man by any stretch of the imagination and you like to keep your feelings and emotions to yourself but this time around that's just not going to cut it. You want Lieutenant Thrace to open up and trust you? That's fair enough but you have to keep in mind that from her perspective the whole experience is going to be downright terrifying. You are going to be asking her to do something she has never done before, something she doesn't really know **_how_** to do and has every reason to believe is a **_very_** bad idea. You are going to have to show her the way and hope that eventually she'll feel safe enough to follow... and it probably wouldn't hurt if you were to pull that girl into a hug every now and then."

"I don't hug and neither does Kara," I say, knowing that I have to draw the line somewhere.

"Believe me, I've noticed, and that's precisely the point," she replies with a rather infuriating smile, obviously not willing to back down.

"What are you getting at?"

"I'm going to be blunt with you here, Bill. From what I've seen I think it's safe to say that there are two kinds of touch that girl understands: sex and violence. Anything else and she feels completely lost ... and I'm not even sure this applies just to touch. In fact I suspect that that is one of the main reasons why she keeps pushing your son's buttons like she does: because she is trying desperately to keep their relationship in terms she knows how to handle but, no matter what she does, their relationship just does not fit within those terms and that terrifies her."

"You seem to be forgetting that she was engaged once," I remind her, almost as a matter of principle, though I can't help but to acknowledge that she **_does_** have a point, that Kara **_does_** have a tendency to push Lee's buttons every chance she gets, a tendency I had never really been able to understand --at least not until now-- but one that Laura has somehow managed to explain with only a couple of sentences.

"I haven't forgotten and I'm not denying that your younger son may have found a way past her defenses but he is not here now so I can only go by what I've seen and that is a young woman who can barely keep herself from flinching when you get too close, though I suspect that that's **_not_** her true nature. Did I ever tell you what happened when your son blew up that tylium refinery?" she asks, seemingly out of nowhere.

"No."

"She was standing next to me at the time, everyone was celebrating and for a moment she forgot herself and hugged me. She let go almost immediately but I pulled her back. Her first reaction at that was to stiffen but eventually she relaxed and even managed to return that hug... in fact for a moment she was almost clinging to me."

"Starbuck?" I ask, rather surprised at that, especially because I remember her reaction in the couple of instances in which I **_did_** try to hug her and 'relaxed' is most definitely **_not_** the first word that comes to mind which, come to think of it, is pretty much the point Laura has been trying to make all along.

"Yes... and then there was her reaction to your son when she came back from Caprica a few days ago."

"What happened?" I ask, allowing my curiosity to get the best of me.

"He was so relieved to see her more or less in one piece that he forgot himself and kissed her. It wasn't a particularly intimate kiss but I think he poured a little more emotion into it than she knew how to deal with so she tried to defuse the whole situation with some flip remark about how she too was happy to see him. Of course, then we became aware of 'Sharon's' presence and the incident was all but forgotten but it was still telling. The thing is that when you say that Kara doesn't hug you are right but only to a certain extent because the truth is that by nature she is a very physical person. Remember what I said a while ago about how somewhere in there is a little girl who probably still believes that she deserved everything she got?"

"Yes," I say, not entirely sure of what Laura is getting at.

"Well, I suspect that even though 'Starbuck' doesn't hug, that little girl does... or she would if she were to be given half a chance."

"You keep talking about that girl almost as if she were a separate entity," I point out, somewhat puzzled by that fact.

"Believe me, I know she's not, though at times it's almost easier to think about her in those terms. The thing is that the fact that she is **_not_** a separate entity is precisely what makes this so tricky because you can't hope to reach her without going through Starbuck first and that is going to be a formidable task. The problem is that for that little girl --Kara for lack of a better name-- actions speak louder than words. That means that telling her that it wasn't her fault is not an option so you are going to have to show her but reaching her without causing Starbuck to bolt in the process is going to be close to impossible."

"Only 'close to impossible'?" I ask, not even trying to keep the disbelief out of my voice at the thought.

"Well, you know her better than I do but I'm fairly certain you can do it."

"I'm not so sure about that," I admit.

"Oh, it's going to be hard and it's also going to be a balancing act, I'm not denying that, but I suspect that you **_can_** take advantage of the fact that Kara and Starbuck communicate mostly on different levels, that Starbuck responds to words better than she does to touch and Kara responds to touch better than she does to words, to reach them both."

"Care to explain that a little better?"

"I mean that you can try to address your touch to Kara and your words to Starbuck, at least until you can get Starbuck to accept your touch as being 'normal'."

"I'm still not sure I understand what you are suggesting," I admit, feeling completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we're dealing with here. When I talked to Cottle earlier he mentioned something about how which bones were broken and when was the least of our worries but at the time I didn't fully realize what he meant by that. Now I think I'm finally beginning to understand how much deeper the damage that was done to Kara really runs and why this is not so much about bones that were broken years ago or about what I might perceive as a lack of trust and the truth is that it terrifies me.

"I can't tell you what to do, Bill, not exactly, because in the end it all depends on Lieutenant Thrace's reactions but trying to predict what those are going to be like is all but impossible. What I **_can_** tell you, however, is that you have to be yourself... you can't do this by trying to pretend that you are someone else."

"But could you at least give me an example, some sort of starting point?" I insist, still trying to figure out what the safest approach would be under the circumstances, knowing that making a mistake is not an option but also almost painfully aware of the fact that this is **_far_** from the kind of battle I'm used to fighting.

"Okay, this whole thing came about because Lieutenant Thrace didn't tell you that she was hurt and you were **_not_** happy about that, right?" she asks after thinking things over for a moment.

"Yes."

"Well, then maybe the next time you see her you could hug her while you tell her that you are glad to have her back so that you can kill her yourself."

"That doesn't sound particularly reassuring," I point out, though there's no denying that what Laura is suggesting does come pretty close to what I feel like doing anyway, if nothing else it does accurately sum up how I feel about Kara's latest stunt.

"And that's precisely the point. It would be something relatively normal, it would hopefully introduce the element of touch to your relationship in a non-threatening manner and it would serve to set her mind at ease, especially because I suspect that right now what she needs more than anything is to know that you don't think any less of her because of what her mother did to her. She needs to know that you are not going to start treating her any differently as a result of what you have just learned so **_not_** going easy on her is probably the best thing you can do and, with a little luck, keeping it in those terms will also make it possible for you to get Starbuck to accept the idea of being hugged **_without_** panicking."

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, first of all, happy holidays! I wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this and I also wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to ask one little question: should I post an update next week?

The situation is as follows: while chapter 18 is pretty much done, chapter 19 still needs some work and the truth is that I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have to work on it until after New Year so there is a small chance that I **_might_** miss an update in early January. I know a lot of people are going to be away from their computers on the 30th anyway but I also know that right now there are way too many stories that are overdue for an update due to real life issues --namely family and the holidays-- so I'm not sure if I should keep up with my regular update schedule for those who **_will_** be reading at the risk of missing the next one or if I should play it safe, skip next week and not take any chances.

I know it's not exactly a matter of life and death but I'd still like to know how you feel about it.

Take care,

Alec

PS- Did you know that reviews make great holiday gifts?


	18. Chapter 18

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 18  
(Laura's POV)

I can see that the magnitude of the task at hand is finally beginning to sink in and I can also see that Bill is on the brink of panicking as a result, not that I blame him. I know he has probably never consider himself to be an ideal candidate to teach a remedial class in 'humanity 101' but that is exactly what he is going to have to do. One way or another he is going to have to help a woman in her late twenties learn things she should have been taught long before she was ten and he is going to have to do it by going against a lifetime of very harsh lessons. That is not going to be easy and the truth is that I'm relieved to see that he is aware of the difficulties he is bound to encounter, or at least of some of them. Of course, even though there's no denying that right now he is somewhat wary of some of the changes I'm suggesting --especially where he fears those changes might end up compromising military discipline-- I suspect that it won't be long before he finds himself embracing most of them. In fact I'm fairly certain that sometime in the next couple of weeks, once that overprotective streak of his kicks into overdrive, I'm going to have to have a friendly talk with him to remind him of the fact that his 'daughter' is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and our species is already on the brink of extinction so we **_really_** can't afford to have him tossing anyone he deems to be an unsuitable suitor out an airlock... but the time for that hasn't come, not yet anyway.

"Would you be willing to help me?" he asks after a moment of silence, bringing me back to the present and obviously feeling more than a little overwhelmed at the prospect.

"I can offer some suggestions but I can't get directly involved," I say, knowing that he is not going to be thrilled with that answer.

"Any particular reason? You certainly know more about this than I do," he points out, obviously not willing to back down.

"More than one, actually. First of all, even though it's true that I'm more familiar with the subject than you are, you know Lieutenant Thrace a lot better than I do and she trusts you more than she trusts me. Second, seeing how the one who hurt her was her mother I suspect that the fact that I am a woman would only serve to complicate matters, in fact from what I've seen she seems to relate to men a lot better than she does to other women, and finally because the bottom line is that I'm in no position to become a key player in anyone's support system."

"Why not?"

"Because this is going to take a while and what she needs is someone who can actually be there for her in the long run."

"So?" he insists, obviously not wanting to hear what I'm saying.

"I'm dying, Bill. Without some sort of miracle I have a couple of months at most and you know it," I remind him.

"But..."

"It's okay and that is not what this is about," I interrupt him, shifting the focus back to the subject at hand, knowing that even though we have never really talked about my condition, now is not the time for us to get into it. "This is about Lieutenant Thrace and the fact that if she is going to come to rely on anyone it has to be on someone that is actually going to be around to support her."

"Life has no guarantees, Laura. I should know. I was shot in my own CIC by one of my people, by someone I trusted."

"I know, but you survived and the chances of another such attack are slim."

"We are at war."

"Yes, and this is a battlestar in the front lines of that war. Believe me, I am well aware of that fact but the truth is that if the Galactica were to be destroyed the rest of the fleet would be doomed anyway so that is not really an issue. Right now we have to focus on what Lieutenant Thrace needs and that's not me. Who else knows about this?"

"Cottle, Lee and Helo," he replies.

"And how is your son taking it?"

"As well as can be expected, I guess."

"Meaning that he is having a hard time trying to come to terms with it, right?"

"It's been a shock, for both of us," he admits.

"But not so much for Lieutenant Agathon?"

"I don't think so. I haven't really had a chance to talk to him since we found out but then again he is not my son and I am his commanding officer. That means that he probably won't approach me with his personal concerns about this, though over all I suspect that he never thought of himself as being close enough to Kara to know everything about her in the first place... Lee and I, we thought she trusted us."

"She does, as much as she is capable of trusting anyone," I reassure him.

"And yet she never told us about this," he mutters, apparently still nowhere near ready to let that go.

"I'm sure there are things in your past you haven't told her, things you aren't exactly proud of... in fact there are probably things in your past you haven't even told your own son," I say letting out a sigh, wondering how many more times are we going to have to go over this before it finally sinks in.

"Yes, but..."

"Trusting someone doesn't mean that you tell them everything and you know it," I remind him.

"But this is different..."

"Perhaps, but not in the way you think. You may love that girl like a daughter, you may even have told her that much, but you have to keep in mind that she may not be able to understand what you mean by that. Her mother was the one that hurt her and I don't know where her father was but going by what you've said I assume he was out of the picture. "

"Yes, her parents divorced when she was seven."

"I see. Well, the good news is that if that is the case then she was old enough to actually remember him so the concept of being 'loved like a daughter' may not be completely alien to her," I say, knowing that that's yet another piece of the puzzle but not quite sure of just where it fits in.

"Then why didn't she tell me?"

"I can't tell you that, not really. In fact the best I can offer you is a guess and I am well aware of how you feel about guessing."

"If I'm going to be part of any kind of strategy to deal with this then the first thing I need to know is what 'this' is," he growls, still trying to approach the situation from a military perspective.

"You are not going to like this," I warn him.

"I already don't."

"I suspect that she was afraid and more than a little ashamed."

"Ashamed? Why would she be ashamed?"

"She values your opinion and if on some level she is convinced that she deserved everything she got then it would be only logical for her to be afraid that you would find out what she thinks is the 'truth' about who she is... either that or she never imagined that anyone could possibly care enough about her to get upset at the thought of her being hurt in the first place."

"Well, I care," he growls.

"Then you have to show her that you do, but you also have to be aware of the fact that her reactions will not always be the ones you would expect them to be. When it comes to this you are going to find yourself dealing with someone whose most basic perceptions are totally skewed, someone who has no idea of how to deal with someone who cares, and her responses are likely to reflect that. That means that you could easily end up walking straight into a minefield without even knowing it," I warn him.

"You are forgetting that I **_do_** know her," he reminds me.

"And that means that you actually stand a chance here but that doesn't mean that this is going to be easy --for either of you-- or that she isn't going to test you and lash out at you because the bottom line is that she has every reason to be wary and that is something you are just going to have to deal with. You care, I know you do, but getting her to understand that is going to be a challenge," I insist, knowing that that is the one thing Bill **_has_** to be fully aware of if he is to succeed in getting past her defenses. "As I said, the idea that someone might be upset at the thought of her being hurt years ago is probably going to be a new one for her. You said that Cottle had identified at least seventeen broken bones, that means that at least some people must have been aware of what was being done to her back then and that they deliberately chose to look the other way and she probably knew it. Even if they had their reasons, even if they didn't say anything because they didn't see how they could help, from her perspective the message was that no one cared enough to do anything about it and chances are that that only served to reinforce her perception that she deserved everything that happened to her."

"You seem to be taking this rather personally," Bill points out, out of nowhere, looking at me as if he were trying to put a puzzle together and I realize that I may have gotten a little carried away.

"Perhaps I am, but I have my reasons," I reply, feeling more than a little exposed in light of that comment and wishing that he would just let it go.

"And are you going to tell me what those reasons are?"

"No," I say, not really wanting to get into it.

"Why not?"

"Let's just say that I owe her and leave it at that."

"You are blaming yourself for what happened to her back on Caprica, aren't you?" he asks.

"Not exactly," I say with a sigh.

"Then why?"

"Would you believe me if I were to tell you that I just want to make amends?"

"Make amends? What for?"

"For looking the other way," I finally admit, thinking back to those children I **_didn't_** help when I had the chance because I was afraid, because I had managed to convince myself that the only thing I could possibly hope to accomplish by getting involved would have been to make matters worse for them. Those children are dead now, all of them. They died without knowing that anyone cared and there's nothing I can do to change that but Lieutenant Thrace is still alive. She is still here and that means that I have one final chance to at least try to make this right.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, better late than never, I guess. The truth is that I wasn't going to update today because the next chapter is not done yet but this kept nagging me so I decided to take a chance and **_hope_** that chapter 19 will be done by next Saturday.

I also wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this and to explain why I haven't responded to last week's reviews: as you may have noticed the alert system seems to be down and while eventually the backlog of alerts and reviews will make its way to our mailboxes I'm not so sure that will be the case with the replies because those are not added to the database. Because of that I decided to wait until the situation is resolved before replying. I apologize for the delay... and please review, even if I don't get your reviews today those **_will_** make their way to me eventually (not to mention that I can always read them online) and they really make my day.

Thanks again and happy new year!

Alec


	19. Chapter 19

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 19  
(Adama's POV)

After escorting Laura back to her shuttle I find myself unable to let go of her words. On the one hand there is no denying that she made some valid points but on the other I'm still far from ready to admit that she may actually have been right about **_everything_** she said. The problem is that short of confronting Kara --something that would definitely be a bad idea-- there is very little I can do to test her theories.

Sure, there's no denying that what Laura said **_seemed_** to shed some light on some of the most puzzling aspects of Kara's behavior --and over all it was essentially in agreement with what Cottle had hinted at earlier-- but at the same time I'm still not sure that hers is the only possible explanation. Knowing that I need a second opinion or at least some additional information if I want to get anywhere with this I ask Lee to come to my quarters.

"You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Come in, son."

"Dad?" he asks somewhat hesitatingly as he closes the hatch.

"How are you holding up?"

"Trying not to think too much but I thought you wanted to wait until my shift was over to talk."

"I did but something came up."

"Oh?"

"I wanted to ask you a couple of questions."

"About?"

"Kara... and Zak."

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I never got to see them together, you did, and I was wondering how they were around each other."

"They were crazy about each other. Zak absolutely adored her and he couldn't keep his hands off of her... not that Kara was complaining about it, in fact that went both ways. It could get pretty annoying at times, to tell you the truth. That's one of the reasons why I'm having such a hard time believing that she could have kept something like this from him in the first place."

"That damned woman," I mutter.

"Kara's mom?" asks Lee, obviously taken aback by my outburst.

"Actually I was thinking about the President," I reluctantly admit.

"The President?"

"I asked her to come over so that I could fill her in on what we had learned about those farms and the fact that Kara had concealed some things that Leoben had mentioned back when she questioned him somehow entered the conversation," I explain.

"You told her? What happened to keeping this to ourselves?" asks Lee, sounding utterly horrified at the thought.

"I didn't have to tell her anything, not really. She already knew."

"How could she...?"

"Apparently the fact that she used to be a school teacher means that child abuse is something she has encountered more than once. Besides, you don't get to be as good at manipulating people as that woman is without an instinctive understanding of what makes them tick."

"But what does that have to do with Zak?"

"She said something, something that got me thinking. She said that the two kinds of touch Kara knows how to deal with are sex and violence and that that's probably why she keeps pushing your buttons: because your relationship with her can't be defined in either of those terms and that scares her. I tried to tell her that Kara had been engaged once but, even though she didn't argue the point, I don't think she was particularly convinced... and I hate to say this but you just proved her right."

"So what, Zak got the sex and I get the violence?"

"Not exactly. I think Zak may have been young enough to be 'easily distracted' and Kara probably took full advantage of that fact to keep him at arm's length but your relationship with her is more complex so she has to keep trying to goad you into either of those extremes and in that regard the violence is just easier... or at least I think that's what the President was hinting at."

"In other words, whenever Zak started getting too close for comfort she kissed him until she was reasonably sure that blood and reason had flown south for the winter but since she knows that that's not much of an option with me she skips the niceties and just punches the daylights out of me?" asks Lee.

"I don't think it's that simple, son."

"Simple or not, one thing is for sure: telling her that I love her is **_not_** the best way to approach her."

"You told her **_what_**? When?" I ask, surprised not so much by the feeling but by the fact that apparently Lee actually came out and said it.

"It's not like you think, dad. We had just had a pretty nasty argument outside of Sharon's cell. Gods, if only I had been paying more attention."

"What happened?"

"I was so angry. I wanted to shoot Sharon right there and then but Kara stopped me... she flat out told me that I had no idea of what had happened to her back on Caprica and then she just walked away. I found her alone a while later, bouncing a ball off the wall and looking kind of lost. I tried to get her to talk to me then but... well, you know how stubborn she can be."

"Yes, I do but what I still can't figure out is what that could possibly have to do with you telling her that you love her."

"I told her that I was her friend, that I was there for her if there was anything she wanted to get off her chest and that I loved her... it kind of slipped out, to tell you the truth, but she latched on to it anyway. In fact she was teasing me mercilessly, telling me how sweet it was and I kept trying to take my words back. I told her that she was dreaming but she insisted that there were no take-backs."

"That sounds like her," I say, trying hard not to smile at the mental image and knowing all too well that when Kara wants to keep people at bay her words can be as devastating as her fists.

"Yes, well, right now I'm having a hard time trying to think of anything but the fact that if only I hadn't allowed her to chase me away with all her teasing I might actually have been able to figure out that she was hurt and she wouldn't be stuck in sickbay right now."

"And that's probably why she did it."

"I know but..."

"There were plenty of chances for this to come out, son, and there is also plenty of blame to go around but in the end the one who **_should_** have said something was Kara. In the end the only reason we didn't know was because she didn't tell us, because she didn't want us to know."

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel better."

"I know but that's in the past and there's nothing you can do to change it so you may want to keep your focus on what you can do... especially because I suspect that things are about to get interesting around here."

"This is not going to be easy, is it?" 

"No, it's not."

"So the President is going to be your secret weapon?"

"Something like that. She made some valid points, I'll give her that, but I'm still not sure how this is going to work in the long run... especially because she wants me to try hugging her," I say, shaking my head.

"Hugging her?"

"Yes."

"And we are still talking about Starbuck here? The President of the Twelve Colonies actually came out and told you that you should try giving Kara a hug?" asks Lee, obviously having a hard time trying to wrap his mind around the idea, not that I blame him.

"Yes."

"Could I make a suggestion?" he asks, wincing as the implications of the president's words sink in.

"Go ahead, son."

"Riot gear... I hear the marines have some. If you ask nicely I'm pretty sure they'll let you borrow it."


	20. Chapter 20

**_For notes warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

_Additional warning_: inner thoughts can be messy.

Chapter 20  
(Laura's POV)

I have to say that this is not what I was expecting when Bill called me but now as I head back to my own ship I can't stop thinking about our little talk, I can't stop thinking about Lieutenant Thrace and I can't stop thinking about what we learned about those farms. Sure, the rational part of my mind knows that that should take priority, that **_that's_** where the most immediate threat is, but it's not that simple and there's another part of me that can't let go of the other half of this story.

As I told Bill, for years I forced myself to look the other way, for years I tried to keep my distance but the truth is that the operative word in that statement is 'tried'. In fact that was the one thing I really didn't miss about teaching when I turned to politics: seeing my children being hurt day in and day out and being powerless to do anything about it.

Yes, child abuse is something I know well, something I had almost allowed myself to believe we had left behind when we turned our backs on the Twelve Colonies but now I realize that that is not really the case, nowhere near it. The thing is that my conversation with Bill was a very vivid reminder of the fact that while we may have escaped the carnage ourselves, escaping our memories is going to be nowhere near that easy and we are going to have to work hard if we want to do as much as minimize their impact on the next generation. In fact, if we can do it at all, that is going to take a minor miracle. The problem is that in the end it's going to be precisely up to people like Lieutenant Thrace and those younger than she is to be the parents of that next generation, there's no way around that and, as deep as the scars that young woman carries may be, they pale in comparison to the wounds inflicted by the cylons on most of our children.

That is a situation we are going to have to do something about --I don't really know what-- and we are going to have to do it soon because the clock is ticking and, even though we have close to fifty thousand survivors, that figure does not accurately reflect how desperate our situation really is.

Sure, fifty thousand souls does not sound like much but, at least in theory, it should still represent a fairly viable population. Unfortunately it's not so simple because on top of that we also have to contend with the fact that, due to the nature of the work involved --a work that used to take them away from their families for extended periods of time-- crews had a marked tendency to be more male than female. When this whole thing began we found ourselves with ships such as the _Astral Queen_ --with more than six hundred men on board and absolutely no women-- and mining ships and freighters in which the ratio was not much better. Since then we have reshuffled the population of the different ships in an attempt to improve living conditions, of course, but that does nothing to change the basic numbers. In fact out of close to fifty thousand people less than ten thousand are women and close to three thousand of those are more than forty years old. That leaves us with about seven thousand women who are young enough to bear children and that figure does include girls under the age of fifteen, take the girls out of the equation and the number drops to a little more than five thousand. To make matters worse there is also the fact that most of our ships are already overcrowded and that means that, even though ideally each one of those women should be encouraged to have no less than five children to enable us to maintain our current population in the long run, in the short term we just can't afford it.

The simple fact is that right now we don't have the room to accommodate that many children, not to mention that having crying babies everywhere would put an unbearable strain on what is already a pretty dismal quality of life throughout the fleet and that would probably lead to an increase in violence... and women and children would almost certainly end up being the targets of that violence.

That means that, at least in the next couple of decades, if we manage to survive that long, we can expect to see our total numbers decline even further because for the time being a rate of one or two children per woman is a far more realistic expectation and even that is going to be pushing our resources to the breaking point but at the same time, considering those numbers, there can be no exceptions. Simply put, we have no choice but to encourage each and every woman to have at least one child if we want to maintain anything remotely resembling a healthy genetic diversity.

The problem is that there are also bound to be some women among us who under normal circumstances would have been more than a little reluctant to become mothers themselves and any attempt to impose motherhood on them would not only be unfair but it could also turn out to be a disaster. Of that Lieutenant Thrace herself is a perfect example. Yes, she is one of those precious few fertile women but, at least for the time being, she is likely to find the mere thought of having a child to be utterly terrifying though maybe --with a little luck-- someday she'll be able to overcome that fear.

Her situation, however, does serve to illustrate why establishing a policy that mandates how many children each woman **_must_** have could easily become the first step down a very slippery slope: because it's not just about having children, it's about raising them and --genetics aside-- having unwanted children who are deeply resented by their parents would do very little to contribute to a healthy population. In other words, women must be encouraged to have children, there's no denying that, but at the same time ordering them to do so is not an ideal solution --far from it-- though unfortunately it is not something we can afford to rule out either, not completely.

In a way it is more than a little ironic to think that our situation in that regard is so similar to the one confronting the cylons, though maybe that's because the real difference is to be found not so much in the predicament itself but rather in how we tackle it. The cylons are willing to impose a mockery of motherhood on unwilling women, seeing them as little more than breathing incubators. We, on the other hand, have so far resisted the temptation to do just that, even though our situation is just as desperate... or maybe even more so. We know our children hold the key to our future, we know they are the one thing the cylons haven't been able to duplicate and therefore they must be protected at all costs. In the end our children are what keeps us human... or they should have been, though as Lieutenant Thrace's past clearly demonstrates, that hasn't always turned out to be the case. In other words, the question is: when facing the very real possibility of our own extinction, how far will we be willing to go and by the time all is said and done, will there be anything left of that original difference?

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, okay, I know it's kind of late but this chapter drove me absolutely crazy. On the one hand I felt like Laura's thoughts were all over the place but when I tried to rewrite it I was left with something that was way too organized and just didn't **_feel_** like a person's inner thoughts so back I went to the original version. I hope it make sense anyway.

Also I wanted to thank you for your reviews. I will reply in the next couple of days now that the alerts are working again.

Take care and thanks for reading!

Alec


	21. Chapter 21

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1_**

Chapter 21  
(Adama's POV)

After my talk with Lee I decide to drop by sickbay once more before heading back to CIC and when I get there I am not exactly reassured by the realization that Kara is asleep. That worries me because it hints at the fact that her condition could be far more serious than I had allowed myself to believe. Sure, on a rational level I knew Cottle had told me that she had been shot but up until now there had been so many things vying for attention --from my outrage at the magnitude of the things she had both learned and concealed, to my shock at the revelations regarding her past-- that the fact that she was actually shot was all but lost in the shuffle.

As I look at her I can't help but to notice that she looks incredibly peaceful but she is also more than a little pale and seeing her I can't help but to remember those nights --especially after I had been away for a while-- in which I would sneak into the boys' room just to watch them sleep. I remember how back then I used to think that my sons were the most amazing thing I had ever seen and all of a sudden I find myself wondering if anyone ever felt that way about her when she was growing up. Going by what I learned here today I seriously doubt it and that saddens me.

For a moment I am almost tempted to approach the bed and place a kiss on her forehead, as I used to do with my boys when they were little, but I know that that would be a very bad idea. I know startling a sleeping soldier can be a dangerous thing even under the best of circumstances, not to mention that --even if she could manage to keep her instinctive reaction at the unexpected contact under control-- I would still find myself with an awful lot of explaining to do. The thing is that I had never felt anything like this surge of protectiveness for her before. Sure, I have thought of her as the daughter I never had for close to two years now but this overwhelming need to keep her safe is something new... and totally unacceptable considering the fact that I am her CO and that means that it is my duty to send her out there day in and day out, knowing that chances are that sooner or later she is not going to make it back. That is something I've struggled with every day since the attacks when it comes to Lee but I had never really allowed myself to feel that way about Kara before --not to this extent anyway-- probably because I was already so used to sending her out there by the time my mind caught up with the fact that my heart had summarily adopted her that I never gave it much thought.

Sure, Lee and Kara are by far my best pilots and I know that if there is a way out of any given situation they are the ones most likely to find it --and that is especially true of Kara, with her uncanny ability to think outside the box... a box I suspect she permanently misplaced many years ago-- but they are still my children, damn it. Would I have been able to send Zak out there if he were here? I'm not sure, I had never really dared to ask myself that particular question before but the truth is that I don't think so. I wanted my younger son to follow on my footsteps, there's no denying that, and I was incredibly proud when he was accepted to flight school but long before the accident I already knew that --even though with the proper guidance he could have been shaped into an outstanding officer and he probably would have shined in CIC-- Zak didn't really have his brother's instinctive feel for flying and no amount of training was ever going to change that, not really.

Sure, I tried to deny it, in fact I had almost managed to convince myself that with some extra effort he would have been able to overcome those shortcomings and become at least a competent pilot but the truth is that long before the accident I had already been approached by a couple of his instructors who had hinted at the fact that maybe I should talk to him about the possibility of pursuing other options within the context of the military. Kara may have been the one who made the final mistake by passing him when she should have failed him but I suspect that she was not the first one to make that kind of call, that others before her had balked at the thought of washing out an Adama and she was just the one who was set up to take the fall if things happened to go wrong. Oh, I'm not saying that anyone at the Academy **_wanted_** my son dead, not even that they **_expected_** him to get killed, but now as I think back I can't help but to notice some things that never really made sense, like the fact that the final decision on whether or not my son was ready to be put in the cockpit by himself was left to an inexperienced instructor who was only a couple of years older than her student. That may not have been against the rules, at least not technically, but it wasn't SOP either... nowhere near it.

Knowing that all this reminiscing is getting me nowhere, I set out to find Cottle.

"How is she doing?" I ask as soon as I catch up with him.

"Getting some much needed rest, at last," he mutters.

"At last?"

"Let's just say that as far as patients go that young woman seems to be missing some pretty basic traits --namely patience-- but right now she desperately needs to get some rest and apparently her body finally gathered the courage to put its foot down and log a formal complaint against all the abuse she's been heaping on it lately."

"Is her condition really that serious?" I ask, feeling more than a little worried.

"Well, considering that she should probably have spent these past few days recovering and not traipsing through Kobol, shooting cylons and trying to fool everyone into believing that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her in the first place, I have to say that she got off remarkably easy but she **_does_** need a chance to recover and maybe, now that she no longer has to worry about trying to keep up appearances, she'll be able to do just that. As for the infection, so far it seems to be responding well to the antibiotics I'm pumping into her. Her vitals look good, her temperature has already gone down considerably and if there are no unforeseen complications in the next couple of hours she should be off that IV by tomorrow morning."

"But in spite of that you still intend to keep her here for the full week?"

"Unless something comes up and I need that bed, yes."

"That means that from a medical perspective she doesn't really have to stay here though, right?" I insist, trying to get a better idea of just where we stand here, at least as far as her health goes.

"'Have to' not really --that's one of the reasons why, starting tomorrow, I intend to allow your son and Lieutenant Agathon to get her out of here for a couple of hours a day, at least as long as they promise to make sure she doesn't do anything too foolish-- but, as I said, that young woman does have an annoying tendency to push herself too hard too soon and I don't want her to find herself right back where she started in a couple of days so I intend to keep her where I can actually hope to keep an eye on her for as long as I have to to make sure that her recklessness doesn't come back to bite her on the ass," he growls.

"And what are the other reasons?" I prod, reading between the lines and knowing the good doctor well enough to realize that he has something up his sleeve.

"Other than a desperate attempt to preserve what little is left of my sanity? I figured that that would give the three of them a chance to get over the worst of the awkwardness without that girl's stubborn pride getting in the way."

"You know, you may be an excellent doctor but the fleet lost one hell of a strategist when you decided to go to medical school," I say, shaking my head at that and feeling, for the first time since this whole mess exploded on my face, that maybe in the end we are going to be just fine.


	22. Chapter 22

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 22  
(Adama's POV)

From sickbay I head directly to CIC, knowing that, as disturbing as this whole situation with Kara may be, we are still at war and I still have a battlestar to run here. It is true that under normal circumstances I can trust my crew to handle pretty much anything that comes up --and luckily so far today we haven't had any contact with the cylons-- but still it wouldn't do for us to get caught with our pants down... well, at least that is what I keep telling myself.

The thing is that being in CIC reminds me of the things that **_haven't_** changed. Yes, I received a pretty major shock today but in the grand scheme of things that doesn't mean much... and in a way I think that may be the key, that may be precisely where I've been going wrong here, because I keep forgetting that even though this is news to me that doesn't make it a new development.

I think that's also what Laura was trying to get me to understand a while ago when she pointed out that chances are that what Kara is dreading more than anything right now is the possibility that I might start treating her differently as a result of what I learned today... especially because as far as she is concerned her past **_hasn't_** changed. After all, from her perspective this is old news and that is something I'm going to have to come to terms with. That means that if I want to be able to reach her the first thing I'm going to have to do is to rein in my instinctive reaction of wanting to wrap her in cotton and keep her safe. Unfortunately the time for me to do that is long past. I can't change what happened to her all those years ago any more than I can go back in time to keep Zak from being killed in that accident and that means that all that's left for me to do is to deal with the fallout... and I also know that this is not exactly what I had in mind when I walked in here determined to take my mind away from this morning's revelations and to focus on the routine of running a battlestar instead.

The problem is that, seeing how we have been on the run for months and how barring an attack --and maybe even then-- most of my crew could perform their duties in their sleep, my presence here is mostly symbolic so there's not all that much to keep my mind from wandering... and, unlike keeping the Galactica going, this situation with Kara is something new and as such it does require as much of my attention as I can give it.

I know that what I need here is a strategy to tackle this mess and in that regard I have to admit that both Laura and Cottle made some valid points. Yes, the idea of hugging Kara is still going to take some getting used to but I think I'm beginning to understand just what it was that Laura was trying to say when she made that suggestion in the first place... and Cottle also had a point when he insisted that Lee and Helo should be encouraged to get past their own awkwardness with this whole mess before Kara's return to duty. Hell, to be honest I should probably add my own name to the top of that list.

In order to do that I have some facts at my disposal --not as many as I would like considering the stakes but hopefully enough to make do-- but if I want to come up with a strategy here I'm also going to need an objective, a goal. That is the part I've had a hard time trying to figure out so far: what do I want to accomplish here? I can't change Kara's past, I know that, and --even though she has an uncanny ability to drive me crazy at times-- I don't want to change who she is either, not really. What I want to do is to get to the bottom of this --whatever **_this_** happens to be-- but at the same time I have to keep in mind that what I have to deal with here is with her present. I guess in the end it all boils down to the fact that I want her to trust me, that I want to get to know her, even if that sounds incredibly selfish.

Is there anything I want **_her_** to get out of this? Well, I want her to know that she can trust me, that she is not alone and --if Laura was right about the fact that somewhere in there is a little girl that still believes that she deserved everything she got-- I want to get that little girl to understand that that was most definitely **_not_** the case... but, even though Kara is the focus of my concerns, in the end I have to accept that this is mostly about me, that --for the most part-- this is really **_my_** problem.

That's something. It still doesn't feel like much of an answer, and it's certainly not the answer I was hoping for, but at least it is a starting point and that was what I was looking for.

The next element I am going to have to factor into this situation are Lee and Helo. I know they are worried and I know I can expect them to drop by my quarters in a couple of hours --that is pretty much a given-- and when they do I better have myself under control. They are two of Kara's closest friends and they already know. Whether that's going to turn out to be a blessing or a curse remains to be seen but the bottom line is that there's nothing I can do about it and the fact that they know at least does mean that we outnumber her three to one. Considering how stubborn Kara can be, that is probably a good thing.

Of course, the fact that there are three of us could also turn out to be a problem because, as I told Lee earlier today, the one thing we can't afford to do right now is to be working at cross purposes from each other. That means that we are going to have to coordinate our offensives here but in order to do that we are also going to have to figure out where each one of the pieces happens to fit in. In other words, we are going to have to be very aware of what our roles are supposed to be here and we are also going to have no choice but to be honest with ourselves as to where our respective relationships with Kara really stand. That could turn out to be tricky, especially considering that while I have no problem admitting that I love her like a daughter --and while in that regard I don't think her friendship with Helo is going to give us much trouble either-- my son is likely to turn out to be a very different story.

I have been watching the two of them dance around each other for months now but in spite of that I still don't have a word to define their relationship and much less do I have a clue as to where that relationship happens to be going... and I suspect that neither do they. That is going to make things difficult to say the least, especially because I'm not sure they are ready to do away with their games just yet... in fact I'm pretty sure they are not.

Does Lee love Kara? Yes, there's no question about that but their relationship is so frakked up that defining that love is all but impossible. Perhaps a more accurate question would be is Lee in love with Kara? That's not so easy for me to say, especially because, for all our progress in these past couple of months, I am still struggling to rebuild my relationship with my son and I don't know him anywhere near as well as I should. My gut feeling is that if he is not then he is at least heading in that direction and --going once again by Laura's comments-- that could lead to trouble because I suspect that that will cause Kara to panic. After all, while Laura said that Kara knows what to do with sex and violence, I couldn't help but to notice that she was very careful to leave love out of that particular equation and I don't want to see my son get hurt here, not if I can possibly avoid it. That brings me to the next question, 'does Kara love Lee?' and the answer to that one is likely to be something along the lines of 'maybe, but --even if she does-- don't expect her to have a clue of what the frak it is that she is supposed to do with that feeling'... and, regs aside, that is where things are bound to get complicated.

If we are going to tackle this --and we **_are_** going to tackle this, no 'if' necessary-- we are going to have to be honest with ourselves but at the same time, seeing how neither Lee nor Kara seem to be anywhere near ready to lower their defenses around each other, I'm afraid that trying to keep things between those two from turning into a train wreck should probably be added to my list of priorities, especially because they are my best pilots and that means that I need them out there. If we are going to survive I need them to be able to work together, it is as simple as that. Besides, in addition to that there's also the fact that an all out war between Starbuck and Apollo could turn out to be far more devastating for this poor old battlestar than a cylon attack.

Well, the good news is that --seeing how this particular mess isn't related to today's revelations but at the same time it wasn't even on my dradis prior to my conversation with Laura-- that means that at least now I have some semblance of a heads-up here and maybe I'll even be able to do something to keep this from spiraling completely out of control, though that doesn't mean I'm happy about it, far from it.

I'm supposed to be a commander, not a counselor or a matchmaker, damn it! As Caroline knew all too well, I've never been good at dealing with this emotional crap so how the frak did I end up finding myself being roped into this whole mess in the first place?


	23. Chapter 23

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 23  
(Lee's POV)

As I approach my father's quarters I see Helo coming from the opposite direction and I barely manage to keep myself from cursing under my breath. I knew he was going to be here, of course --after all, I was the one that told him that the old man wanted to see us after our shifts-- but I also wanted to have at least a couple of minutes to talk this over privately with my father before he got here.

The truth is that this last shift was anything but easy for me. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't stop thinking about Kara and I'm not sure if the fact that I was stuck doing nothing but paperwork made matters better or worse. Sure, the fact that I was flying a desk meant that the only ones in danger of getting killed as a consequence of my distraction were a couple of pointless reports no one is ever going to read anyway but at the same time... well, let's just say that paperwork has never been one of the most effective things to keep my attention and as a result my mind just kept wandering back to sickbay.

The problem is that no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to reconcile the image of Starbuck with what the doc told us about her past... not to mention that I still want to throttle her for not telling me about it, for not trusting me. She's my best friend, damn it, and I shouldn't have found out like that.

I know that sounds petty but it bothers me.

Even now I have to admit that I am tempted to just go down to sickbay and shake some answers out of her and it is only the certainty that there's no way I'd ever make it past Cottle that's stopping me. Sure, the rational part of my mind knows that getting mad at Kara will get me nowhere here but right now I don't particularly care about rational, I just want to feel like I'm doing something.

Knowing that I can't change the facts I greet Helo and knock on the hatch.

As soon as we are alone my father makes a deliberate gesture out of removing his dog tags and placing them on the table. I follow suit immediately and so does Helo. We all know what that means: this is not official business and rank has no place here... or at least that is the theory. Of course --as I know all too well-- my old man does have a tendency to cast a giant shadow and even though no formal orders are going to be issued here today, both Helo and I **_will_** end up doing exactly as we are told, of that I have no doubt.

The thing is that, even though we could all agree to remove our dog tags, that doesn't mean we have a clue as to what it is that we are supposed to say or do next. This is an awkward situation to say the least. We are all waiting for someone else to say something but Helo is not going to do it because,even with the dog tags on the table, it would probably still feel awkward for him to do so and my father is obviously waiting for one of us to make the first move. That means that, unless I say something we are likely to be here until dawn... and there is no such thing as dawn in a battlestar.

"So, any news?" I ask, just to break the silence and get the ball rolling.

"Not really. She's still in sickbay and last time I checked she was getting some rest."

"In other words Cottle still won't let you question her?"

"No, but that could actually turn out to be a good thing."

"How so?" I ask, somewhat taken aback by his acceptance of Cottle's refusal.

"Because before we go asking questions we have to get ourselves some answers. We have to figure out what we already know and then use that as our starting point to come up with some sort of long term strategy."

"So we are tackling this as if it were a battle?"

"You were the one who suggested riot gear in the first place," he reminds me.

"Yes, but..."

"Relax, son. I know she is not the enemy and that is precisely the point."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we need a strategy but if our goal is to **_help_** Kara then we have to make sure we don't end up hurting her in **_our_** quest for answers... and if we were to go in there half cocked chances are that we would end up doing just that."

"Yes, well, I guess the simple answer to the question of what we know is: not much. I mean, she's my best friend but she never told me anything about this and I know you didn't know about it either."

"No, you are right and I will be the first one to admit that I did not particularly enjoy being blindsided by this whole thing but --as the president reminded me-- we **_do_** know Kara and that is the most important thing. After all, we are used to reconstructing a battle based on a lot less evidence than we have here."

"Yes, well, she's stubborn as hell and she can fly circles around pretty much anyone, we know that much, but I don't see how that's going to help us."

"That's Starbuck," dad points out.

"Yes," I reply, not quite knowing what he means.

"I said Kara," he reminds me... not that that is much of an explanation.

"So?"

"So I think that if we want to get anywhere here the first thing we are going to have to do is to look **_past_** Starbuck."

"You are saying that Starbuck is just a facade?"

"No, I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. Starbuck is a very big part of who she is --there's no question about that-- but at the same time I think she may also serve as a defense mechanism for the 'real' Kara... and this is about her."

"Well, she is a fighter --we know that-- but maybe we should focus on how she got to be one, sir," says Helo, speaking for the first time.

"Care to explain that, lieutenant?" asks my father, obviously forgetting the no-ranks rule for a moment.

"When we were on Caprica at one point we went back to her place and while we were there she said something. She said that most people were fighting to get back what they had lost but she was just fighting because she didn't know how to do anything else. At the time I didn't give that comment much thought, I had more important things to worry about with the cylons on our tails, but now..."

"But now you think it's something we could use," dad finishes for him and I can almost see the wheels turning.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, okay so here I was feeling really depressed due to the complete lack of feedback for yesterday's update and then I realized that I had forgotten to upload it. Sorry about that.

Alec


	24. Chapter 24

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1_**

Chapter 24  
(Adama's POV)

I'm going over Helo's words in my mind and it doesn't take me long to realize that they provide me with the one thing I had been missing up until now: a clear definition of just what it is that I want to accomplish here. Sure, I've had a general idea of what it was that I wanted to do almost from the beginning and Laura had even given me a number of valid pointers when it came to turning those ideas into a concrete plan but I really didn't know how to translate my goals into words.

I knew I wanted to understand, of course, but that seemed too selfish --something that was more for my benefit than for Kara's-- I knew I wanted her to open up and trust me but that felt like a step along the way rather than a destination, but now things are finally starting to take shape and all that's left for me to do is to fill in the blanks. The next step has to be to get Lee and Helo on board but at the same time I'm not sure I'm ready to reveal my hand to them, not yet.

"The first thing we have to do is to get past the awkwardness, there's no question about that and no way we are going to get anywhere with her until we do," I say, turning my attention back to the young men in my quarters.

"That's not going to be easy," Lee points out, stating the obvious.

"No, it's not but as long as we accept that our discomfort is **_our_** problem I think we do stand a chance."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we have to keep in mind that regardless of how hard the news may have hit us, it's news **_only_** to us. Kara has known about this all along and one way or another she has made her peace with it. If we want her to be okay with the idea of us knowing about this then the first thing we have to do is to accept that. I suspect that from where she is standing the worst thing we could do right now would be to start treating her differently, treating her as if she were damaged or broken. We may want to keep her safe but she is still Starbuck and the bottom line is that Starbuck doesn't need or want our protection."

"So you want us to act as if nothing had changed, to pretend that we are not upset by this at all?"

"No. We are still talking about Starbuck here and if we were to do that she would see right through us," I warn him. "What I want us to do is something far more basic than that. I want us to show her that the fact that we know doesn't change how we feel about her, that we don't pity her or think any less of her as a result, but at the same time I think we have to be willing to acknowledge that this **_thing_** is out in the open now. That means that one way or another we have to keep this from becoming the elephant in the room without smothering her in the process."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" asks Lee.

"By being there for her, by not trying to pretend that this doesn't bother us... by openly asking questions if we have them but not pushing for answers if she is not ready to provide them," jumps in Helo before I can say anything.

"Exactly... at least in the short term," I agree, relieved to see that he is willing to be rational about this. My son is the one that seems to be having a hard time moving past his shock and, even though that is not entirely unexpected, it could still turn out to be a problem.

"And in the long term?" Lee insists, obviously still needing more of an answer and confirming some of my fears in the process.

"I'm not sure," I lie, knowing that even though I **_do_** have a long term plan in mind, it is one I am going to have to implement myself... especially because, as things currently stand, Lee's good intentions could easily end up doing a lot of damage here. He wants to **_fix_** this and he wants to fix it now but the problem is that there can be no **_fixing_** it in the first place... to say nothing of the fact that even **_dealing_** with it is bound to take time and that we can't afford to end up trying to fulfill each other's roles.

"But you do have an idea," he remarks, not even bothering to phrase his statement as a question.

"Nothing concrete. I think we should take this one step at a time and right now our top priority should probably be to try to set Kara's mind at ease. That is the first thing we have to tackle and from where we stand it would be impossible for us to try to predict where the pieces will fall after that."

"So what you are saying is that we should just go back to being her friends and being there for her... and that if we do, everything else will hopefully fall into place?" asks Lee.

"No. This is not likely to be anywhere near that simple. What I'm saying is that if we want her to trust us the worst thing we could do would be to treat her differently because that would confirm her worst fears and cause her to shore up her defenses. That's the last thing we need."

"To say nothing of the fact that bluffing our way out of this is **_not_** an option because that would be kind of like trying to beat her at the triad table?"

"I'm afraid so," I agree, somewhat amused by the analogy, though there is no denying that it is a valid one.

"In other words: this would be so much easier if Kara weren't so damned stubborn but then again if Kara weren't so damned stubborn chances are that we wouldn't even have to worry about doing this in the first place so we are just going to have to deal with it as best we can?" asks Lee, accurately summing up the situation.

"Unless we want to push her away. Whether we like it or not things have already changed and we can't go back to the way they used to be. That means we have to choose a path here. We could choose the easy way out but that would mean running the risk of alienating Kara for good or we could choose to do things the hard way and hope that we make it past this whole mess somehow but if we want to do that we are going to have to take the initiative."

"So the bottom line is that one way or another we **_are_** going to find ourselves going up against Starbuck and we can pretty much expect her to throw everything she's got at us?"

"Something like that," I admit. "The thing we have to remember is that she never meant for us to find out about any of this, that this came out almost by accident and that in a way the revelation was as unexpected for her as it was for us. Now, I'm not denying that getting these secrets out in the open could turn out to be a good thing in the long run but she is not likely to be ready to see it that way any time soon so even getting her to that point will probably take some doing."

A few minutes after that Lee and Helo leave. I have to admit that we made some progress here today and that is definitely a good thing. If nothing else at least I know that now we are all on the same page and this little encounter also enabled us to get a better idea of what our next step should be but that doesn't change the fact that right now I am deeply relieved to find myself alone. That means that I finally have a chance to at least **_try_** to figure out what is it going to take for me to teach my 'daughter' how to do something **_other_** than fight.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys. Okay, first of all, sorry about the delay. I admit that when I started revising this chapter I realized that I absolutely hated it... three and a half days later I finally managed to get it to the point where I deeply dislike it but at the same time I have come to the realization that some of the problems go back to the basic structure of the story (namely that this encounter was supposed to be about getting three characters to share their perspectives but since --with the exception of Helo-- I had already covered their thought process in some detail, there was no keeping this from sounding repetitive). Of course, as if that weren't enough I also started posting another story last Wednesday ('Control'), I installed some new software in my computer that interacted in 'unexpected' ways with some of my existing applications and on top of **_that_** yesterday my dyslexia was acting up pretty badly (in fact I just couldn't read no matter how hard I tried). In other words, it's been one of those weeks but hopefully things will get a little better now... if nothing else at least this scene is behind me, 

Alec


	25. Chapter 25

**_For notes warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 25  
(Kara's POV)

I am looking at the curtain almost willing it to remain closed but of course I know that's not likely to happen. Cottle was here a while ago to check on me and to take out my IV. That is the good news. The bad news is that he also told me to get dressed because Lee would be here any minute to take me to the mess and the truth is that I'm not looking forward to it, far from it. I never thought the day would come when I would find myself wishing for an excuse to remain in sickbay but the truth is that right now I'd rather go one on one against a frakking centurion than face him.

Sure, I've known him for years and he is my... well to be honest right now I don't know what the frak he is --whether he is my best friend, my dead fiance's older brother, my superior officer or my wingman-- but the bottom line is that he is the guy I have come to rely on and I don't relish the idea of seeing the contempt in his eyes but at the same time I know there's no getting out of it. That is the part I'm dreading right now, especially because I know that this time around there will be no escaping my past and my weaknesses. They have caught up with me and they've got me, there's no way around that. I mean, the Twelve Colonies are gone, we have fifty thousand survivors and a single battlestar so where the frak am I supposed to go? That means that whether I want to or not I am going to have to face this... and it's not going to be pretty, especially because I suspect that Lee is going to want to talk this whole thing over to death and I don't think I'll be able to put him off, not this time around.

In fact I seriously doubt that even picking a fight with him would be enough to get him to back down. When he was here yesterday he seemed pretty damned determined to get himself some answers and I know that when he is that determined he **_can_** out stubborn me.

In other words, whether I want to or not I am going to have to deal with this... and to make matters worse he is not the only one who knows. Helo and the old man also know about this and that means that chances are that I'm going to lose the three people I'm closest to, hell, that I'm going to lose the only three people left in the universe that I am actually close to. That is a terrifying prospect. Sure, I trust them to keep this to themselves but there's no getting away from the fact that they know and that means that things between us will probably never be the same.

I am still thinking about that, still trying to figure out what the frak am I supposed to do about any of this when I see the curtain being pulled open and I know it's time for me to face the music.

"Hi there," says Lee, looking unbelievably uncomfortable.

"Hi," I reply, not doing much better myself.

"How are you?"

"Fine. I mean, I'm still a little sore but, as Cottle keeps reminding me, that's pretty much to be expected when you've been shot," I say, trying for flippancy and failing miserably.

"And are we okay?" he asks, not quite meeting my eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"It's just that this is..." he trails off.

"Incredibly awkward?" I finish for him.

"Something like that," he admits. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"About the farm? When I first came back we had other things to worry about and then..."

"Don't play dumb, Kara," he growls, obviously not willing to be distracted.

"I don't know... I just didn't think it was that big a deal."

"Now you are lying to me."

"What?"

"I've known you for years and if you really **_hadn't_** thought it was that big a deal you probably would have brought it up one way or another. The truth is that you didn't mention it because you didn't want me to know about it and that tells me that you **_knew_** it was a big deal. You would have had no reason to conceal it otherwise," he points out.

"Conceal it?" I ask, not quite believing my ears. "Sure, I never told you about it but that doesn't mean I was..."

"Don't even try it, Kara. I'm not going to get into an argument over semantics with you, not this time around," he warns me and I realize that this is going to be even worse than I had been expecting it to be. I mean, we haven't even made it out of sickbay yet, though in a way I suspect that that has been deliberate, that while he wants some answers and he wants them right frakking now he is going to be careful not to question me in public and in spite of everything I am deeply grateful for that. After all, the last thing I need is for the rumor mill to get a hold of this and trying to air this out in the mess would almost certainly result in us being overheard by **_someone_**. Of course, given half a chance I would much rather not deal with this at all, but somehow I don't think that's going to be an option.

"It's no big deal, Lee. It was a long time ago and I just... I don't like talking about it, that's all," I try to explain, wishing that he would just let this go but knowing that there's no way that's going to happen. The problem is that there's no way I can answer his questions either, not really. I mean what the frak am I supposed to say here? 'I didn't want you to realize just how frakking pathetic I really am'? That would go over beautifully.

"You were trying to forget?" he asks, obviously still not getting it.

"No! That's not it. I just didn't see how it could possibly be anyone's business but my own," I say, rather lamely, even though I know he is **_not_** going to understand.

"Is that why you never told Zak either?" he asks softly and I can't help but wonder why he is so obsessed with that.

"It helped that he never really asked," I reply, knowing that whether I like it or not, the only thing that's left for me to do here is to tell the truth and to try to get this over with as quickly as possible.

"Are you saying that you were actually waiting for him to come out and ask you about it specifically?"

"Okay, I admit that when you phrase it like that it does sound kind of dumb but... it just never seemed like the right time for me to say anything. Let's just say that it never came up and, to tell you the truth, I didn't really see the point in bringing it up either. I mean, sure, my mom was not the nicest person to be around --not even under the best of circumstances-- but she is dead now and that was years ago."

"But she wasn't dead when you were with Zak," he reminds me.

"No, but that's not really the point. Even back then I still hadn't even heard from her in years and whether or not she was still breathing in the end it made no difference. As far as I was concerned my past belonged in the past and talking about it was not going to change a damned thing so why bother?"

"Well, I have to say that I don't think not talking about it is going to be much of an option this time around," he warns me and I just glare at him, especially because I know he is right about that, that whether I want to or not I'm going to find myself facing Lee, Helo and the Old Man and that that's **_not_** going to be fun... to say nothing of the fact that, knowing the three of them, I can pretty much count on a coordinated attack here.

"What do you want to know, Lee?" I finally ask, letting out a resigned sigh and knowing that the best thing I can do here is to at least try to get this over with. After all, if I'm going to lose him over this anyway, there's no real point in dragging this out.


	26. Chapter 26

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 26  
(Lee's POV)

I am somewhat taken aback by Kara's easy acceptance. The truth is that from the moment I walked in I had been steeling myself for a confrontation and the last thing I had been expecting was for her to give me what amounts to a blank check to ask her whatever I want... and yet that is pretty much what she has done. Now, I may have been spending too much time with her lately but I can't help but feel that there is something very wrong with this picture. After all, if experience has taught me anything when it comes to dealing with her it is precisely that when things seem to be uncomplicated it means that I'm either reading them wrong or I am about to walk straight into a trap. Either way I know better than to take her offer at face value. If nothing else at least I know I have to tread carefully here. There is something about her attitude, something that doesn't quite add up and I can't help but wonder what the frak is going through her mind... not that I've ever had much luck when it comes to figuring that one out before.

The problem is that, even though I **_do_** know better than to take her offer at face value, I also have something like a million questions I am itching to ask.

I have been thinking about this almost nonstop for the past twenty-four hours, ever since I found out that there is an awful lot about my best friend I **_don't_** know and that in turn has enabled me to piece a less than pleasant picture together. In addition to that, a number of little things I had never been able to understand about her all of a sudden are starting to make an awful lot of sense, to the point that I can't keep myself from wondering how I could possibly have missed this in the first place, if maybe I didn't see it just because I didn't **_want _**to see.

The thing is that that is a mistake I am determined **_not_** to repeat and going by her attitude I am afraid that I am already on the brink of doing just that. That means that I have to pay more attention, especially because I am fairly certain that there is more to her easy acceptance than meets the eye. Sure, she is trying hard to hide it but I know her well enough to realize that she is scared half to death here, though there is also something else, something I can't quite put my finger on. In fact when she asked me what I wanted to know she seemed to be almost resigned. The question then must be: resigned to what? That is what I have to figure out before I proceed. Knowing that pushing her for answers is probably not the best thing I can do, I decide to reply to her offer by asking her what happened. It is an ambiguous question, one she has some leeway to answer in any way she wants but also one that will hopefully give me at least some sort of an insight into what the frak it is that I'm dealing with here.

After hesitating for a moment she says, almost defiantly, "it's pretty simple, actually. My mom was a drunk and not a fun one to be around. When I was seven my dad decided that he had had enough of the whole thing and left. Once he was gone she started drinking more and more, to the point that she was rarely completely sober. That didn't exactly go over well with her superiors so she was dishonorably discharged and, you guessed it, that caused her to turn to the bottle even more until she could barely function. Eventually it got so bad that she couldn't even hold a job, she was frustrated as hell and somehow she figured that the whole thing was my fault... though to be honest she had been telling me that I had ruined her life ever since I could remember so I can't really say that it was the ambrosia talking. Anyway, she was mad at the world but seeing how she couldn't really beat the crap out of the world she settled for beating the crap out of me instead and there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. That, in a nutshell, is the whole frakking pathetic story. So can we go to the mess now? I'm starving here," she points out.

"How old were you?" I insist, pushing down the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and ignoring her rather obvious attempt to put an end to this conversation.

"When she was discharged from the military? Nine," she replies, shrugging her shoulders and trying to sound casual but not really fooling me, not this time around.

"So from the time you were nine..."

"Actually it started long before that," she whispers, not meeting my eyes.

"Before your dad left?" I ask, seeing red at the thought of a man willingly abandoning his child in the hands of a woman he **_knew_** to be abusive.

"Yeah..."

"And it lasted until...?"

"Until I was about thirteen, for the most part," she says. "By that time I was old enough to avoid going home when she was likely to be awake and the last time things got really bad between the two of us I was fifteen. Sure, I did have to dodge the occasional flying bottle every now and then even after that but I rarely ever went home to begin with, not to mention that she was usually too drunk to see straight so her aim left a lot to be desired anyway. The thing is that by that time she could no longer overpower me as she had when I was little and for the most part I could take care of myself so she pretty much lost interest in me and left me alone, at least as long as I stayed out of her way and didn't remind her of the fact that I was alive."

"At fifteen?" I repeat, rather stupidly, not quite daring to ask what she meant by 'the last time things got really bad'.

"Well, it **_was _**every kid's dream," she points out, obviously trying to distract me.

"What do you mean?" I ask, deciding to play along, at least until I can figure out what the frak it is that she is **_not_** telling me.

"Come on, Lee, when you were fifteen did you really **_want_** your mom and dad hovering over you 24/7?"

"No, but..." I begin but she interrupts me.

"I was free to do whatever I wanted, to come and go as I pleased or not come home at all even on school nights, not to mention that I could **_see_** whoever I wanted without having to worry about her throwing a hissy-fit about me hanging out with the 'wrong crowd' or anything like that," she insists and I can help but to admit that when she phrases it like that it doesn't sound so bad, at least not from a teenager's perspective, but I am not a teenager and I am all too aware of the fact that there is a lot more to this story than I am being told.


	27. Chapter 27

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 27  
(Kara's POV)

Okay, it's official: this is getting ridiculous. I mean, here I am, trying to play the 'good ol' days' card with Lee when I know there's no way in hell he is going to buy it but the truth is that I'm getting desperate. I've tried everything I can think of to get him to let go of this but so far I haven't had much luck. I just want to get this over with once and for all but unfortunately he seems to have other plans and I don't know what to do.

Sure, I knew this was going to be tricky, I knew that Lee was not going to be easy for me to shake but come on, can't he just get this over with and put us both out of our misery once and for all? The problem is that it's not just that he is being stubborn, it's also that he doesn't seem to want to play by the rules and that is complicating matters.

I mean, I was pretty sure that telling him the truth was going to be enough to cause him to be disgusted enough to go away but it only got me a worried look and that is definitely **_not_** what I had been expecting. That is a problem, though luckily I think we are finally starting to make some progress here and that gives me hope that this won't drag on for much longer.

"Did she feed you at least or would that too have qualified as you 'reminding her of the fact that you were alive'?" he asks, sounding far from happy and I am relieved to see a somewhat normal reaction out of him, one I can actually work with.

"There was food at the apartment, most of the time and, well, let's just say that family dinners had never been part of the routine so it was basically up to me to feed myself. Besides, as you can see I didn't exactly starve to death so it wasn't that big a deal."

"That's not the point!"

"I already told you, my mom wasn't the type to come into my room to tuck me in at night and read me a bedtime story," I point out. "I was used to taking care of myself, I had been doing it for as long as I could remember. Hell, when I was six or seven it wasn't unusual for me to have to get myself ready to go to school on my own because she was still sleeping so not having anyone to fix my meals for me when I was thirteen or fifteen or whatever wasn't really that big a deal."

"You were a kid, Kara."

"I could take care of myself," I shoot back.

"Maybe, but the point is that you shouldn't have had to do it."

"Yeah, well, one lesson I learned early on is that 'shouldn't have' won't get you anywhere. My life may not have been perfect but it wasn't anything I wasn't used to and it certainly wasn't anything I couldn't handle."

"And you think that makes it right?"

"It's not about what's right, damn it! I mean, was your life perfect?" I snap, knowing that it is a low blow but not particularly caring about it.

"No, but it wasn't..."

"It was the only life I knew and as far as I was concerned it was perfectly normal. Hell, I was eight by the time I finally figured out that there was anything different about it."

"What!?" he exclaims.

"Well, I never said I was bright."

"How could you...?" he trails off.

"How could I what? Not know? I just didn't. I was used to it all and I couldn't see anything wrong with it because as far as I was concerned that was just the way things were. I mean, I remember sitting in class and wondering how the other kids could manage to stay still for so long. It never even occurred to me that it was because no one had beaten them black and blue the night before. The point is that as frakked up as it sounds, that was the only life I knew. I couldn't change it then and I can't change it now, so sorry if it doesn't fit your neat little picture but bitching about it is not going to make any difference at all so what is the frakking point? Now are we going to go get something to eat or do you want to keep beating on this dead horse for a little longer?"

"Would you just stop it?"

"Stop what?"

"Trying to push me away, it's **_not_** going to work."

"I'm not..."

"Yes, you are so why don't you just tell me what the frak it is that you don't want me to know and get it over with once and for all?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, that's your problem, isn't it?"

"Kara..."

"Drop it," I warn him.

"Is that what you really want?"

"Yes," I growl.

"Tough. Why are you so afraid?"

"Afraid?" I challenge.

"Yes."

"You are frakking crazy, Adama!"

"Maybe, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong," he says, crossing his arms and digging his heels in... so much for my hopes that he would let go of this dead horse any time soon.

"I'm not afraid, I just want you to get this over with, that's all!"

"Get what over with?"

"**_This!_**"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing. What do you want me to get over with?" he insists.

"Why don't you just go?"

"Do you really want me to go?" he asks, sounding as if he were trying to put some sort of puzzle together.

"Yes!" I all but scream at him, trying to keep myself from crying. I had figured that pushing him away would hurt less than having him walk away but it looks like either way it's going to hurt like hell and he is **_not_** making things any easier here.

"No, you don't," he says, looking at me almost as if he could see right through me and I can't help but to look away.

"What is this really about, Kara?" he asks gently, cutting past my defenses.

"It's just that..." I trail off, not knowing how to explain, how to make him understand.

"Why do you keep trying to push me away?" he insists and I just shake my head.

"Look at me."

I do so reluctantly.

"I am not going anywhere," he says. I try to keep myself from flinching at his words but he knows me too well.

"That's it, isn't it? That's why you are trying so hard to push me away. I won't leave," he promises, sounding almost surprised at that. He says it with so much sincerity that I almost find myself believing him but I don't, not really. Oh, I know he means it, or at least he thinks he does, but I also know that once he's had the time to think it over he is going to regret those words and it wouldn't be fair of me to hold him to them.

TBC


	28. Chapter 28

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 28  
(Lee's POV)

I can see the doubt in her eyes, no, it's not doubt, it's something deeper than that: it's disbelief. Kara is absolutely convinced that I am about to walk out on her, it is as simple as that. That is the last thing I had been expecting and the truth is that I don't know what the frak it is that I am supposed to be doing here, especially because I get the funny feeling that no matter what I say she is **_not_** likely to believe me and that the only thing I could possibly hope to accomplish here would be to dig myself into a deeper hole.

Sure, I knew coming in that this wasn't going to be easy, the old man had already warned me about that, but I hadn't really expected to find myself up against the wall in a matter of minutes either. I guess in a way I had managed to convince myself that somehow I was going to come in here and know what to say, what to do, to make it all better and all of a sudden I am being confronted by the realization that that's just **_not_** going to happen, that fixing this is going to take time and patience, that there are no magic words that can make this all better in a matter of minutes and that --as good as our intentions may be-- we can still pretty much count on the fact that Kara is going to fight us every damned step of the way.

I may not want to accept it but what I am up against here is a lifetime of indoctrination that has left her absolutely convinced of the fact that she is a screw-up, and an unlovable screw-up at that, and that is an indoctrination that is going to be hard for me to break. The thing is that even though I find her acceptance of what was done to her to be sickening, I don't think there's any way for me to convey to her that I'm disgusted by what was done **_to_** her, not **_by_** her... and that even if I could somehow manage to get that point across she would still probably perceive my horror as pity.

Of course, even if I don't want to admit it, the truth is that there really is an element of pity to it. I can't help it but at the same time I don't think that's likely to do me much good, especially because I know Kara's stubborn pride is bound to find that pity offensive.

In other words, I've been here for a little more than ten minutes and I'm already feeling as if I were banging my head against a wall... a wall that looks an awful lot like my best friend. Sure, I know I have to try to set Kara's mind at ease --that is my top priority-- but I also know that that is going to be easier said than done because no matter what I say she is not likely to believe me. That bugs me but I know there is nothing I can do about it so I decide that taking her to the mess may well be my best bet, at least in the short term. After all, that is why I came here in the first place and the bottom line is that if there's no way for me to tell her that I'm not going anywhere --at least not in terms she is likely to understand-- I am going to have no choice but to show her, even though that is bound to take a while.

In a way that is kind of funny. Yesterday I was all but certain that my father was exaggerating when he told us that we were going to have to come up with some sort of strategy to deal with this whole mess. After all, even though we were all more than a little shocked by the day's revelations I figured that when all was said and done we were still talking about Kara and that Kara was a known quantity, now I'm beginning to realize that the old man was probably right, that this is going to be twice as hard and probably take four times as long as I had been expecting it to... and that even that is likely to turn out to be a conservative estimate.

The problem is that while on a rational level I am willing to accept that, there's also a part of me that just wants its best friend back and it wants her back right frakking now. I want us to go back to the way things used to be before this whole thing came out, even though deep down I know that that's never going to happen, that one way or another things have already changed and that there's absolutely nothing I can do to unchange them.

I hate this tension between us and I hate the fact that I don't know just what the frak it is that I'm dealing with here. I hate feeling almost as if Kara were a ticking time bomb... though come to think of it that part is not really all that new. In a way she has always been a ticking time bomb but while up until yesterday my main concern when dealing with that particular bomb was that saying the wrong thing could cause me to find myself on the receiving end of her temper -- not to mention her fists-- now I'm more worried about protecting her, about keeping her safe, about the fact that I could easily end up saying something that could really hurt her and that fear is definitely something new.

I used to think that Kara was pretty much unbreakable, now I'm beginning to realize that not only isn't she unbreakable but in a way she is already broken... and the worst part is that I don't have a clue as to what the frak it is that I am supposed to do with all these little pieces.

TBC


	29. Chapter 29

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1_**

Chapter 29  
(Kara's POV)

I knock on the hatch, not quite knowing what to expect and only a couple of seconds later I get a gruff 'enter!' in response so I guess this is it, it's time for me to face the music.

Sure, lunch with Helo wasn't too bad but then again Agathon doesn't happen to have the name 'Adama' attached to him and I knew all along that those were the ones I was going to have to watch out for.

I mean, breakfast with Lee went a lot better than I had been expecting it to --that is true-- but then again considering that I was convinced that the whole thing was going to be an unmitigated disaster... well, the fact that he was **_merely_** walking on eggshells all of a sudden didn't really seem quite so bad. Oh, there were the unavoidable 'poor, broken Kara' looks that were really driving me crazy but --as I said-- I knew going in that those were likely to be unavoidable.

Of course, with the old man I think my main concern has to be that chances are that he is going to be really, _really_**, _really_** pissed. I mean, Lee may be feeling a little hurt because I never told him my pathetic sob story but the old man is my CO and I deliberately concealed some pretty important information regarding enemy activity from him in a time of war and even a screw-up like me knows that that is seriously frowned upon.

That is where we are likely to have a problem, especially because I know there's no excuse... not after he was shot and almost killed by a damned sleeper agent, one we all trusted. Oh, I could try to argue that it's only been a couple of days since I came back and that if I had seen any sign of Simon or that blonde bitch I would have said something and that if 'Boomer' hadn't managed to blow her cover by that time I **_would_** have done it for her without a second thought but that is not the point. The point is that by keeping that information to myself I jeopardized the fleet and in that regard saying that 'I just didn't want to be reminded of what happened back on Caprica' is not going to cut it.

Well, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm here now and I might as well get this over with while I'm at it... though getting it over with would probably be a whole lot easier if I actually knew what the frak to expect. I think I know but then again I thought I knew with Lee but he just refused to play by the book and that pretty much drove me nuts... and the moment I walk into the old man's quarters I realize that things aren't likely to go much better this time around.

He has this weird look in his eyes and I don't know what the frak am I supposed to make out of any of this. If he would just come out and yell at me, tell me that I really screwed up I would know what to do but apparently that is **_not _**the way this is going to go.

After a few seconds that feel like hours I just can't take the silence any longer.

"I'm sorry," I say, even though I am all too aware that just saying 'sorry' is not going to cut it.

"Sorry?"

"I know I should have come clean sooner but I just..." I trail off.

"I won't pretend I'm not mad at you for concealing this information, Kara, but I am willing to acknowledge that there were some mitigating circumstances."

"Mitigating circumstances?" I ask, somewhat taken aback by that comment.

"Don't get me wrong. If the Galactica had been here when you came back I would be nowhere near as willing to look the other way but the bottom line is that things were crazy all around and the fleet was divided... and I will even acknowledge that bringing up your injuries while we were on Kobol could easily have turned into a distraction, one we could ill afford while we were down there. In other words, up until we came back onboard I would say that your conduct, while not exactly exemplary, does not represent the real problem because at the time our primary concern was accomplishing our immediate mission. Having said that, these past few days cannot be so easily explained."

"I know, sir, and I'm sorry. It's just that I..." I try again but I still can't seem to get past that particular point.

"That you what?"

"It's just that having kept quiet at first I didn't know **_how_** to bring it up without getting in trouble for not having said something sooner, especially with Lee," I explain, feeling more than a little silly.

"And you didn't particularly want to talk about that farm either, not if you could possibly avoid it," says the old man, obviously reading between the lines.

I just shake my head at that.

"Give me your eyes, Kara," he orders and I do so reluctantly.

"I understand that. That doesn't mean that I'm not disappointed by the fact that you didn't think you could trust me but I do understand."

"It was bad," I find myself whispering, almost against my will.

"I imagine it was. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know what to say. I mean, I killed those women... I didn't want to but I still did it. I didn't have a choice, not unless you count leaving them there but..."

"But what?" he prods.

"But I can't forget," I admit. "No matter how hard I try I just can't box it away and move on. I keep seeing them and there's not a frakking thing I can do about it. I've run through that scene so many times in my mind, trying to figure out what I could have done differently but I still don't know what the hell it was that I was supposed to have done."

"Have you considered that maybe that is because there really **_wasn't_** anything you could have done to save them? You were hurt, you were trying to get away, to stay alive and you gave them the only kind of relief you could give them under the circumstances. You did the best you could, Kara, you did good."

"I frakking killed them!" I all but scream, trying desperately to get him to understand.

"Yes, there's no denying that but if you had been in their place, with no hope whatsoever, would you have fought your own death or would you have welcomed it, embraced it as the only kind of relief you could possibly have hoped for?"

"I would have welcomed it but I can't..."

"We all have some battles we can't let go of. In the end that's what keeps us human and there's nothing wrong with it as long as you don't let your doubts paralyze you."

"I'm used to flying," I say, not quite knowing how to explain.

"I know, and when you are out there your enemy doesn't have a face, you don't see it dying."

"When I'm out there things are simple. When I'm out there I am going up against frakking toasters but in that farm... those weren't enemies, they weren't toasters. They were women --human women whose only crime was to have been captured-- and then when I took out those machines..."

"What happened?"

"The room caught fire... and some of them were still alive... even as I made my way out I could still hear them screaming as the fire got to them and they burned to death. I remember it as if that damned stench of burning flesh were chasing me... I can still smell it now."

"There was nothing more you could have done for them. I can't even tell you to learn from the experience and move on because the bottom line is that you did what had to be done."

"And that's the problem, I did my best, but it still wasn't enough, it was nowhere **_near_** enough!" I all but yell at him.

TBC

****  



	30. Chapter 30

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers, see chapter 1._**

Chapter 30  
(Adama's POV)

Kara is still standing in front of me and I am looking at her and wondering what the frak am I supposed to do next. The truth is that I wasn't expecting something like this, though I probably should have been.

Sure, I knew we had a lot to talk about, that's why I asked her to come see me in the first place, but I hadn't expected the trauma from what she went through on Caprica to be quite so raw... or maybe I just hadn't expected it to take this particular form. I had expected her to be angry and maybe even afraid after what she had seen on the planet she used to call home but I hadn't expected her guilt to override everything else... and that was obviously a mistake.

Even though at times it feels like the attacks happened a very long time ago, the truth is that it's only been a couple of months and, even though she is a soldier, Kara is still young. She may be the best pilot I have ever seen and she may have taken out dozens or even hundreds of raiders but the keyword in that statement is 'pilot'. Up until she went back to Caprica Kara had never encountered the gray areas that can only be experienced on the ground. The closest she had ever come had been that situation on the 'Astral Queen' and I don't think that came even close. Like she said, out here things are usually simple, clear cut... down there it is a very different story. On the ground the lines have a tendency to get blurred and the decision she had to make, without the benefit of a chain of command to help her ease the guilt, is obviously taking its toll on her.

Mercy killings may be a mercy but they are still hell on the ones left to pull the trigger.

Deep down I know what I have to do, it's what I had been meaning to do all along but the problem is that I'm still not sure **_how_** to do it. Almost hesitatingly I put my hand on her shoulder and I feel her tense up immediately. She looks up at me, rather startled, and I can see the confusion reflected in her eyes. I can see that she is torn between fighting and fleeing and that she knows she can't really do either. Knowing that taking this slow is **_not_** going to help me, that it would only serve to prolong the agony, I decide to bite the bullet and I pull her close.

Not surprisingly, her initial reaction at that is to stiffen and to almost instinctively pull away but I fight the urge to let go of her, knowing that this is a hurdle we have to get past here and that if I were to let go of her now we would just have to do this all over again sooner rather than later. After a couple of seconds she relaxes a little and she even manages to return the hug in her own, rather awkward, way. It's almost as if she didn't even know what it is that she is supposed to be doing with her arms and I am somewhat taken aback by just how **_right_** holding her like this actually feels. It is not much but I know it is a first step so we just stay like that in silence for a few seconds but eventually I have no choice but to let go of her.

After leading her to the couch and getting her to sit down next to me I look at her again, trying to gauge just where we stand but the problem is that what we have here is trauma piled upon trauma and I can already see that peeling back the layers is going to take a while.

There is the aftermath of what she did on Caprica plus the trauma of what happened to her there in the first place, to say nothing of her guilt over how she left and what happened as a result... and that doesn't even begin to take into account all this crap about her past that has probably been dragged to the surface in light of the recent revelations. In other words, what worries me is not so much that I don't know what the problem is but rather that I'm not sure which problem I am supposed to tackle first... and I am afraid that trying to tackle them in the wrong order would cause the whole unstable heap to come crashing down.

Well, the good news is that I think so far I'm doing okay... the bad news is that awful feeling of one down, about ten thousand to go I can't quite get rid of. Yes, this hasn't blown up on my face --at least not yet-- but the fact that it hasn't doesn't mean that it won't.

"So, how are you feeling?" I ask, rather awkwardly, not knowing what else to say but trying to get the conversation back on track.

"I'm good," she says, not meeting my eyes.

"I know Caprica was hard and you probably don't want to hear this but... you did good. You were given an almost impossible mission and you managed to pull it off. Against all odds you managed to come home, Kara, and that is more than I had dared to hope for."

"Yeah, and I broke about every damned rule in the book in the process," she mutters.

"Not nearly as many as you think."

"So you are defending me to me now?"

"No, but... I may not have been happy about it at the time but I will acknowledge that you were put in an untenable situation. You were caught between me and the president and that was not your fault. In that regard you did what you had to do and I understand... I won't pretend I wasn't mad at the time, but the truth is that you did what you were supposed to do."

"Sir?"

"The president and I may have an unofficial agreement that says that she is supposed to stay out of military matters --and she did break it by sending you back to Caprica-- but the fact is that **_she_** broke it, not you. The President of the Twelve Colonies is the Commander in Chief of all Colonial Forces and even though that Commander in Chief is not supposed to actively command the troops, legally she does outrank me and has the power to countermand me if she wants to. As Commander in Chief the president can make use of all military assets as she sees fit and she certainly has the authority to order a member of the military to go out on a covert, or even a suicide, mission without having to ask for my approval."

"So you are not mad at me?" she asks, sounding incredibly young and I can't help but to smile at that.

"No, at least not any more. I'm just glad to have you back... I don't think I had really told you that before," I say and am somewhat taken aback by the surprise I can see reflected in her eyes.

"Believe me, I'm glad to be back too," she replies, rather awkwardly.

"I can imagine... but that doesn't mean we don't have some things we need to discuss."

"But I thought you said you were not mad at me."

"And I'm not," I reassure her.

"Then why...?"

"I need to know what happened back on Caprica, that's all."

"I jumped back, went to the museum looking for the arrow and that's where I first ran into that blonde bitch. I managed to take her out but not without almost getting myself killed in the process and then Helo was there. I was so happy to see him. He had 'Sharon' with him. That's when I realized that she had to be a cylon but he wouldn't let me shoot her... he told me she was pregnant with his child. We were arguing about it and Sharon took advantage of the opportunity to steal my raider so Helo and I were basically stuck. We managed to make it back to my apartment and, more importantly, to my truck. We were trying to figure out how the frak we were ever going to make it out of that rock when we found ourselves surrounded by what we first thought was a group of cylons, only it turned out that it was a makeshift resistance led by the Caprica Buccaneers instead. We were still trying to come up with some sort of plan to make it back to the Galactica when we were ambushed. I got shot and... well, you already know the rest, sir."

"I'm sorry."

"You didn't ask me to go," she reminds me.

"I may not have ordered you to go, not directly, but I know I played a major role in your decision to do so."

"It wasn't your fault," she insists

"I know," I say, shaking my head at that and more than a little frustrated by Kara's inability to understand that I can be sorry for what she's been through without necessarily being responsible for it. I wonder what is it going to take for me to get her to understand that I'm sorry because I care about her and I don't like to see her hurt... and also wondering how many hundreds of little things like this I have managed to overlook in these past couple of years. Oh, I've known all along that there are two very different sides to her, of course. On the one hand there is the larger than life Starbuck, the one who hits first and asks questions later and on the other there is a gentler side, one I have only glimpsed at in those rare moments when she actually lets her guard down... and the problem is that right now I'm not really sure which one I'm dealing with.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, okay first of all, thanks for reading this, I really appreciate it. I also wanted to let you know that I have begun posting another fic called 'Broken Balance' (story id: 3451272). It is a sequel to 'Control' and while I don't expect it to have much of an impact on the updates for this story, if RL decides to get hectic it might end up doing just that (though I hope it won't come to that). Anyway, the way this is going to work is as follows: ideally I will keep updating both fics weekly ('Long Shadows' on Saturdays and 'Broken Balance' on Wednesdays), if I miss an update, the story I missed will take priority the following week, no questions asked. On the other hand, if I have updated both stories and I have to decide which one takes priority, feedback will be one of the deciding factors. In other words, while I will **_never_** hold a story hostage to the amount of feedback received and even if no one reviews I will keep on posting (I will be pretty depressed, but I'll keep on posting), feedback could end up being a deciding factor on the frequency of those updates, so please review.

Thanks, and sorry about that. As I said, I will try to keep this from ever becoming an issue (this is just a backup plan),

Alec


	31. Chapter 31

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 31  
(Kara's POV)

Okay, would someone **_please_** hand me a frakking script here, because honestly, I swear that this is starting to feel like a very sick joke. I mean, I get what the old man is saying about the president outranking him and all that crap, I really do... but from what I've been told his first reaction when I jumped back to Caprica was to stage a coup, one that left the fleet divided and ended with Lee and the president being 'protected' by **_Zarek_** out of all people on the 'Astral Queen', so why the hell is the old man being so frakking reasonable all of a sudden?

Sure, things have been better since we came back. The fleet is back together, we finally have some semblance of a clue as to where the frak it is that we are supposed to be going and he's managed to come to an understanding with Roslin and Lee. Hell, he even seemed to be relieved when he saw **_me_** down on Kobol, but that was before he found out that I had lied to him about Caprica... or at least that I hadn't told him the whole truth.

I was fully expecting him to rip me a new one for that as soon as I walked in here but he didn't. In fact, just like Lee and Helo, the old man seems to be determined to kill me with kindness... only he is taking it to the extreme with the whole hugging thing. What the frak was that all about? If he had just punched me, yelled at me or thrown me in hack, that I would have known how to handle but when he hugged me I just didn't know what to do, how to respond. All I knew was that there was a part of me that felt safe and didn't want him to let go --ever-- and **_that_** in turn scared the crap out of me.

I may trust the old man with my life but I also know that that kind of trust can come back to haunt me... and that it probably will. That was a lesson that was beaten into me early on... unfortunately there also seems to be a part of me that never got the frakking memo.

All I know is that I have to get out of here, I have to figure out what the frak is going on but at the same time I know that's not likely to happen any time soon. So far the old man is showing no signs of being willing to let me go and I'm afraid I'm going to screw this up... big time.

Oh well, if he was looking for one surefire way to drive me nuts, he seems to have found it... and --seeing how I can't just walk out of here-- it looks like I'm going to have no choice but to try to ride this one out.

* * *

**_Author's notes_**: Hi guys, okay sorry about the extra-short chapter here. This thing used to have a chunk of dialog attached but then I realized that that dialog was taking more from the story than it was adding to it so in the end I decided to just get rid of it.

Also, thanks for reading... and please review!

Alec


	32. Chapter 32

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 32  
(Laura's POV)

Okay, so I admit that the situation I 'had to discuss' with Bill was nothing but an excuse to drop by --and a pretty flimsy one at that-- that the truth is that I was curious about how his encounter with Lieutenant Thrace had gone... especially because when I talked to him he was being annoyingly vague.

"So, how did it go?" I ask when it becomes apparent that he is **_not_** going to volunteer any additional information.

"She is a mess." he says, not even trying to pretend that he doesn't know what I'm talking about. "I knew things were going to be hard but I never really expected them to... as for your idea that I should try giving her a hug, well, I have to say that the jury is still out on that one."

"What happened?"

"She panicked. Oh, she did her best to hide it but I know her and..."

"That was to be expected," I remind him.

"She looked like she was expecting me to beat the crap out of her... hell, she looked almost as if she would have preferred it."

"And she probably would have," I say, knowing that he is not going to like it.

"What?!"

"At least that would have been familiar to her and she would have known how to deal with it but when you hugged her you took away her entire frame of reference and that must have been scary for her. As far as she is concerned violence is safe."

"That's crazy!"

"You hugging her? From where she stands that is the unknown at best and the bait for a trap at worst. That is what I've been trying to tell you all along. That is also the part you are going to have to understand if you ever want to get through to her. I know you are not going to hurt her --and deep down she probably knows it too-- but you are still asking her to let her guard down, to turn her back on a lifetime of experience... and that is not going to happen overnight. You took the first step by setting a precedent and that is the important thing here. Now you can build on that but you can't really expect a single hug to make it all better so you are just going to have to be patient."

"In other words you are telling me to keep at it?"

"Yes, but maybe now that the first step has been taken you can proceed in a less 'dramatic' fashion."

"What do you mean?"

"You can rub her back, hold her hand, pat her shoulder... the list goes on. You don't have to make a big deal out of those displays of affection as long as you make them a part of your normal interaction with her. Hopefully in time she will learn to accept those little touches as something normal and non-threatening."

"Do you realize just how absurd this whole thing sounds?" he asks, shaking his head in obvious disbelief.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean it's not necessary. Besides, you've told me that Lieutenant Thrace is like a daughter to you. I realize that the idea of having to teach a grown woman how to accept even the most basic displays of affection may seem a little odd but at the same time I'm not suggesting that you do anything you **_wouldn't_** do on a regular basis if she were your daughter."

"Maybe not but if she were my daughter she would have no reason to be afraid," he reminds me.

"I realize that but you can't change her past no matter what you do and the bottom line is that that past will always define her to a large extent. That doesn't mean that there is nothing you can do to try to help her... and it certainly doesn't mean that you should just give up."

"Are you giving me a pep-talk now?"

"Depends, is it working?"

"I don't know if I can do this."

"I understand that but I'm afraid it's a little late for you to back down. You are a military man and you want an enemy you can defeat. I understand that but that's not the way this works so you are going to have to approach this whole thing from a different perspective. This is a battle, yes, but at the same time this is not an enemy you have to beat, quite the contrary... in a way it is an enemy you have to embrace."

"Are you done with the lame puns? This isn't a joke," he growls before going on. "Besides, Kara is not my enemy... now if only I could get my hands on her mother..."

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself," I say, trying hard not to smile at his reaction. "All I'm saying is that while you can see this as a war and you may even be tempted to develop a strategy to deal with it, this particular battle will require a different approach... one that goes **_against_** your military ways."

"And that's the problem. I **_am_** a soldier and that is not something that comes with an on/off switch."

"I know, and believe me, I'm not asking you to turn into someone you are not. That old soldier is precisely the one who, against all odds, managed to earn Lieutenant Thrace's trust in the first place and he did that by being there for her **_without_** pushing her... now you just have to build on that to start nudging her in the right direction, that's all."

"'That's all'?" he repeats, rather sarcastically.

"I never said that this was going to be easy. In fact I warned you that it was going to be very, very hard," I remind him. "As I told you a couple of days ago, when I was a teacher I had to force myself to stay out of situations like this precisely because a year was nowhere near long enough to reach the children... and trying to reach a child is a lot easier than trying to reach an adult. Now, the good news is that you are not starting from zero here so you probably won't need anywhere near that long because she already trusts you and that is the most important thing. That means that you are just going to have to make some adjustments rather than start from scratch."

"Yes, but..."

"You can't back down now," I interrupt him.

"I know, but..." he trails off.

"But this is not something you signed up for?"

"Something like that. Let's just say that how to hug your subordinates is **_not_** something they teach you at war college and leave it at that."

"I know but I'm afraid that the military code of conduct that was drilled into you back then went out the airlock when the Twelve Colonies were destroyed and there's nothing you can do about it. I hadn't wanted to bring this up but I think we both know that some changes are going to be necessary in that regard."

"Changes?" he asks, sounding more than a little suspicious at that.

"Yes, to begin with there's the fact that, as they stand, the frat regs are woefully inappropriate given the current state of mankind and sooner or later we are going to have to acknowledge that fact. Right now the people stuck in the same ship with us are the closest thing most of us have to a family and the Galactica is no exception in that regard, nowhere near it. The rest of us are just stuck with our shipmates but here your people must literally rely on each other to survive. Besides, even though those under your command are willing to lay down their lives for the rest of the fleet, that doesn't give us the right to ask them to stop living in the process. I know that acknowledging that things have changed and that we have no choice but to change with them is bound to be painful but come on, Bill, you **_still_** have your people filing all the necessary reports in triplicate with one copy of every document intended for the fleet's headquarters as if those headquarters were still standing! You have to admit that, given that our supply of paper is limited and that no one will be transferred anyway because there are no other battlestars left, keeping on top of all that paperwork probably shouldn't rate as a top priority, to say nothing of the fact that there are probably better things those under your command could be doing with their time."

"Okay, I'll give you that but... there's going to be a lot more to this than just the paperwork or even the frat regulations though, isn't there?" he asks, growing suddenly serious.

"Nothing I haven't mentioned before," I reply, not wanting this conversation to get sidetracked but knowing that this is an argument we are going to have no choice but to have sooner or later.


	33. Chapter 33

**_For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1._**

Chapter 33  
(Adama's POV)

Okay, I wonder just what it is that Laura is up to here. Sure, I realize that she is probably right about the fact that trying to keep on top of the paperwork is likely to be a rather futile exercise --an attempt to hold on to what is familiar to us in a world gone mad-- and that the whole thing could probably stand to be at least streamlined to fit our new circumstances. After all, eighty or maybe even ninety percent of the reports currently being filed will never be read again and we certainly have no use for any additional copies but when it comes to the frat regs things are nowhere near that simple... and I suspect that those are her real target.

The problem is that I'm not sure Laura understands just how important those regs really are. I'm not sure if she realizes that those regs are there for a reason, not just to make the crew's lives miserable. Simply put, it would be all but impossible for us to do away with them --or even to modify them substantially-- without jeopardizing the discipline on board... and with the Galactica being the fleet's first and last line of defense let's just say that we can't afford to start experimenting to see what works. Of course, I am not naive enough **_not_** to know that those regs are being broken right and left even as we speak and that there is no way we can hope to enforce them or even discipline those who get caught breaking them because there are no trained replacements for any of them. I could easily live with such an arrangement, one in which the regs are disregarded but appearances are maintained, but unfortunately --going by Laura's words-- I suspect that that is not going to be an option.

"What do you mean it is nothing you haven't mentioned before?" I ask, playing the fool though I am already fairly certain of where this is going and I know that I'm **_not_** going to like the answer in the least.

"Remember what I said to you right after the attacks, when you wanted to go back to keep on fighting?"

"Yes, you told me that the war was over and we had lost... that we had to get our people to safety... and we did."

"I also said something else," she reminds me.

"You told me that our people had to start having babies if our species was to survive," I admit, rather reluctantly, realizing that there's going to be no getting out of this one.

"Well, I'm afraid that, as they stand, the frat regs are not exactly conductive to that end."

"I realize that but at the same time you have to admit that a battlestar is far from an ideal environment in which to raise a child."

"Oh, I do realize that, believe me, but somehow I think we left 'ideal' behind a very long time ago and in that regard a battlestar isn't any less appropriate than any of the other ships."

"No, that is completely unacceptable," I say.

"That is not optional," she replies.

"This is my ship," I remind her, not willing to back down.

"Yes, but unless your people start making babies along with everyone else, within a couple of decades it would end up being nothing but a ghost ship."

"What are you saying?"

"I am telling you that our situation is far more desperate than you seem to realize. We have only about five thousand women of childbearing age in the entire fleet and **_all_** of them should be encouraged to have at least one child if we are to maintain anything remotely resembling a healthy genetic diversity. Now, I'm hoping it won't come to the point where we have to mandate how many children each woman **_must_** have but the bottom line is that as the frat regs stand --and considering how unlikely your people are to be able to socialize with civilians on other ships-- the end result is that we are effectively losing hundreds of those women and that is not something we can afford..." she begins.

"And since the military personnel currently on board the Galactica represents the whole of the military, there are no replacements for any of them. That means that unless we do away with those regs we would be effectively be renouncing hundreds of babies," I finish for her, realizing where she is going with this and also realizing that, as much as I may not want to admit it, she is actually right about that. Simply put, there's no way I can't make do without the contribution of the women under my command --of Dee, Cally, Kara, Racetrack and countless others-- but at the same time if we are to keep our species going we are also going to need their contribution to our rather limited gene pool.

"Exactly," agrees Laura, bringing me back to the here and now.

"And is there some reason in particular why you decided to bring this up now or is this just a coincidence?" I growl, still not happy with the whole situation.

"Well, I hadn't intended to say anything about it, not yet, but I admit it's not completely unrelated either," she replies.

"What do you..." I begin but then I realize just where she is going with this and I just say," Kara."

"Yes, she is one of those women but considering both her past and what the cylons did to her, I don't think she would appreciate being pushed into motherhood..."

"But when you say that **_all_** women must be encouraged to have at least one child, she is **_not_** an exception," I finish for her.

"No, she's not."

"I'm not telling her," I say.

"And I'm not asking you to," she reassures me. "Believe me, I already got a taste of what would happen to this fleet if you weren't around -- if Colonel Tigh were in charge-- so I'm **_not_** about to send you out on a suicide mission, not if I can possibly avoid it."

"Then what?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe you. I know you and you've obviously been thinking about this for a while... for a couple of days if not longer," I point out.

"So?"

"So by now your contingency plans probably have contingency plans of their own," I reply, refusing to play along until I know what this is **_really_** all about.

"It's nothing as underhanded as you think."

"Why don't you tell me what you are up to and let me be the judge of that?"

"What you are doing with Lieutenant Thrace..." she begins but then she trails off.

"Yes..." I prod.

"The way I see it, it may well be our best chance to help her overcome her reluctance in that regard and that's why it is so important. That's why I need you to nudge her in the right direction... not push her, but nudge her. It's a long shot, I'll give you that, but the truth is that if that young woman is ever to become a successful mother she is going to need some positive reference in terms of what a 'family' really is."

"In other words, you want me to be the one to do the 'encouraging', though you want me to be subtle about it," I say, and then the rest of her comment registers and I can barely keep myself from laughing as I ask, "wait, did you just use the words 'Starbuck' and 'becoming a successful mother' in the same sentence?"

She smiles a little at that too. Oh, I know that if it came down to it, Kara would probably manage to pull it off somehow --after all, she does have an uncanny knack for defying the odds-- but let's just say that the idea of Starbuck chasing after a toddler all over my ship is not one I had ever contemplated before.

"Something like that, though right now I'd settle for her being able to lower her defenses enough to allow those she trusts to come a little closer. That would be a first step... and with a little luck the rest would follow."

"I never realized that you were such an optimist," I say, shaking my head at that.

"You'd be surprised," she replies and I realize that she may actually be right about that. In these past couple of months I've come to know President Laura Roslin well. She is a woman who carries a heavy burden --one I can easily relate to-- but the truth is that I don't know the woman she used to be, so maybe it is time for me to start digging a little deeper. After all, getting to know your enemy is supposed to be a key part of any military strategy and up until now I have been more than a little remiss in that regard. 


	34. Chapter 34

_**For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter1.**_

Chapter 34  
(Kara's POV)

I'm relishing my first taste of freedom in what feels like ages as I instill the fear of God --that would be me-- in a brand new batch of disgustingly green nuggets and I am also feeling incredibly grateful for the fact that I am finally out of sickbay --well, at least for a couple of hours-- when I look up and I can barely keep myself from hitting my head against the wall as I realize that the old man is sitting quietly in the back of the briefing room. True, it is not so unusual for him to sneak in here to quietly check out the new recruits --and that is why I refrain from drawing attention to his presence in the first place-- but somehow I get the feeling that this time around the nuggets are not the reason he is here. The thing is that both Adamas have been hovering a little too much for comfort lately --though the old man at least _**tries**_ to be subtle about it-- and that in turn is driving me nuts. That was one of the reasons why I had been looking forward to being here, on my own. Of course, maybe I should have realized that getting rid of them, even if it was only for a couple of hours, wasn't going to be anywhere near that simple.

The problem is that even though the idea of hitting my head against a wall --repeatedly-- is starting to look like a surprisingly tempting one, I am afraid that giving myself a concussion would only serve to give the doc the perfect excuse to keep me grounded for even longer and that is the last thing I need.

Sure, Cottle is still not willing to let me completely off the hook and he still wants me to report back to sickbay at night for another week or so rather than go back to my own rack but at least now I'm free to move around the ship during the day without a damned babysitter. That's progress! As for the nights, he said something about wanting to make sure that I actually spend them sleeping and not playing triad in the rec room, not to mention that I'm still not allowed to drink, but somehow I suspect that that is just an excuse... and a pretty lame one at that. I mean, come on, even when I was a kid I didn't have a bedtime so what's next? Are they going to come into my room to tuck me in at night and read me a frakking bedtime story while they are at it? Sure, I know they mean well and I also know that this whole mess caught them more than a little off guard and they are trying to cope with it as best they can but the truth is that --even though I'm trying hard to cut them some slack-- they are smothering me and sometimes I just want them to back off and leave me the frak alone.

I want things to go back to the way they were but that is looking less and less likely with every passing day. Like what happened yesterday. I was trying to push Lee's buttons as I always have, trying to goad him into a fight so that he would just stop being so frakking nice to me but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get him to play along. He ended up just looking hurt and, to top it all off, that left me feeling guilty about the whole thing. I have to say that that was frustrating as hell.

On a positive note, I only have a couple more days to go before I'll finally be allowed to resume my maintenance shifts. That will at least get me onto the flight deck and close to my viper, not to mention that it will cause me to find myself surrounded by other people --people who are not Adamas-- and I'm hoping that that in turn will get them to give me a little more room to at least breathe. I can barely wait.

Oh, I know they mean well and I realize that they are only trying to 'help' but the problem is that they don't seem to realize that nothing is broken here and I just want to go back to feeling like myself, damn it. Of course, I know that that won't really happen until after Cottle clears me for active duty and he is obviously in no hurry to do that.

I really don't know what the doc's problem is. Sure, I didn't tell him that I had been shot, that was probably a dumb thing for me to do and it did make matters worse from a medical perspective, I get that, but this is getting ridiculous. I mean, the guy usually can't get rid of his patients fast enough so why did I have to go and become the exception to that frakking rule?

I'm really itching to be out there, flying. That is where I need to be, where I belong, where I feel at home and where the universe actually makes some sense. Out there things are simple, not to mention that I _**really**_ miss my viper. Yes, I know that at times it sounds like I'm obsessed with it but let's face it, my life literally depends on it so it's kind of natural that I would be attached to it. I depend on my viper to stay alive and to this day it has never let me down. That is more than I can say about most people... besides, this time around I do have an additional reason to miss it: with the incredible hovering Adamas hovering over me I can't quite forget that, my viper is _**mine**_ and no matter how you look at it, a viper only sits _**one**_.


	35. Chapter 35

_**For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1.**_

Chapter 35  
(Cottle's POV)

As I watch Starbuck all but run out of here I can't help but to shake my head and wonder if it was enough.

Starting tomorrow she is going to be back out there and --even though things are still far from normal-- the truth is that I had run out of excuses to keep her off active duty and the fleet needs her.

As strange as it may seem, her biggest problem right now is that from a physical perspective she is doing fine. In fact I should probably have released her from sickbay ten if not twelve days ago and I suspect she knows it... but then again her injuries were not the reason why I insisted she stay here in the first place. I knew that if she had been left to her own devices she would have done everything in her power to push people away, especially Apollo and the old man, and that was something I was trying to avoid. Of course, if in the process these past couple of weeks taught her a lesson about asking for help --especially _**medical**_ help-- I would be incredibly grateful but, well, the truth is that I'm not holding my breath. The bottom line is that that girl is just too frakking stubborn and I don't think that's likely to change any time soon. Hell, I'm not even sure I _**want**_ it to change.

Of course, when it comes to Starbuck and Apollo, Starbuck is only half the problem. The other half is Apollo, who seems to be determined to keep walking on eggshells around her. He keeps pushing her to talk to him --to _**trust**_ him-- and he keeps reminding her that 'he knows', something that is probably bugging the hell out of her. That, I suspect, is the real issue. Oh, I can see that he is trying, there is no question about that... unfortunately he is also failing miserably.

He seems to be determined to fight off an enemy that isn't even there and in the process he just keeps forgetting that Thrace is not exactly the 'wrap her in cotton and keep her safe' kind of girl. I could tell him that that is not the best way to approach it but he probably already knows, he just can't help it.

Unfortunately I suspect that --unless he gets over it and gets over it quickly-- that attitude is going to land him here sooner rather than later. After all, I've known Kara ever since she first came onboard and one thing I've learned is that there's only so much pushing you can do before she starts pushing back... and my gut tells me that Apollo is long overdue for a fist-shaped reminder of that little fact.

Well, the good news is that at least Helo has shown some common sense in that regard... in fact out of the three of them he is the one who seems to be coping the best with this whole situation. If nothing else at least he seems to be aware of the fact that there is nothing for him to _**fix**_ in the first place and he treats Starbuck as he always has.

As for the old man, while he is nowhere near as bad as his son, I do know him well enough to realize that this has hit him and hit him hard. He may be more subtle than Apollo in his attempts to make things right but those are still undeniably there. Of course, in a way that is only natural.

I've known Bill Adama for a very long time and I know all too well how he feels about that girl. I saw him with her when she first came on board, shortly after Zak's death. They were both a mess and in a way they both held on to each other for dear life. At first Zak was the thread that bound those two virtual strangers together but by the time the worst was behind them the two of them had somehow managed to become a family. She was no longer his almost-daughter-in-law... she was the daughter he had never had and the best of both his sons all rolled into one convenient, foul-mouthed package. She had a natural skill in that viper of hers that the pilot in the old man couldn't help but to admire... and she accepted him, unlike Apollo who wouldn't even talk to him in the aftermath of his brother's death.

That was what sealed it for him, and now the father in him is struggling to come to terms with the fact that someone hurt his 'little girl' and he is desperately trying to protect her, even if the rational part of his mind knows that it is too late for that, that she is neither his nor little... not to mention that she is more than capable of taking care of herself.

In fact the funny thing about these past couple of weeks has been precisely the way in which both Adamas have been so worried about Thrace's past that they haven't given much thought to her present so the reason why she ended up here in the first place --the fact that she was shot and captured by the cylons only a couple of weeks ago-- has been all but forgotten. That should have been their most immediate concern.

In fact what the cylons had done to her in the first place was something that remained a bit of a mystery so yesterday I decided to run some tests on her to determine the extent of the damage and the good news is that, just as I had hoped, those revealed no missing --or added-- pieces. In other words, even though the experience has obviously left its mark on her, chances are that the cylons didn't have time to do more than take a couple of tissue samples. That is still far from a comforting thought and I know it, but considering the alternative --and what the cylons were apparently up to in that damned farm of theirs-- I think this was the best we could possibly have hoped for.

In fact even though at first Starbuck was more than a little reluctant to even allow me to conduct those tests, when all was said and done I suspect that she was glad to at least have an answer to the questions she hadn't dared to ask. She may have tried hard to keep up her facade and hide it but I could see that not knowing just what it was that that butcher had done to her in the first place was really bothering her and now she finally has some answers... now she just has to figure out what she is going to do with them.

* * *

_**Author's notes**_: Hi guys, sorry about the delay. The truth is that even though I should have posted this thing yesterday I was not happy with it in the least and even after an extensive rewrite I am still far from pleased. Unfortunately this is a transitional chapter, as was last week's, and I suck at writing transitional chapters. The good news --if you can call it that-- is that the transition is over so hopefully next week's chapter won't be this bad.

Also, sorry about the delay in replying to your reviews. I promise to try to get caught up later today, now that the site is finally back to what passes for normal,

Alec


	36. Chapter 36

_**For notes warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1. Also please keep in mind that reviews make authors happy and research has shown that happy authors are twice as productive!**_

Chapter 36  
(Lee's POV)

I hadn't realized how much I had missed this, just being able to fly with Kara by my side, knowing that no matter what happens she's got my back. Sure, we may have our disagreements every now and then but out here we don't even have to talk to understand each other. Of course, seeing how words do have a rather annoying tendency to get in our way --how we both keep saying one thing while thinking or doing another-- maybe out here we can understand each other precisely because we don't have to talk.

The truth is that in the aftermath of the awkwardness that has characterized these past couple of weeks just being out here feels like coming home. Oh, I know that things are still far from normal between us, that we still have a very long way to go, but at least now we are back in our element and that is deeply comforting... especially for Kara. I can see it on her face.

I am still thinking about that when the little joyride that had been our first CAP together in what felt like ages is suddenly interrupted by half a dozen raiders and we turn our attention toward taking them out, even as we see the fleet jumping away all around us.

The dogfight itself is over in a matter of minutes, in fact the encounter is hardly worthy of that name. I take out two of the raiders while Kara takes care of the other four and then we head back to the Galactica where even as I land my bird I can't keep myself from grinning like a fool at the memory of her whoops of joy. We may have been fighting for our lives out there but you would never have known it by listening to her. For her that was just fun, something she had obviously been missing. Flying is what she was born to do... and I have to admit that her enthusiasm in that regard is contagious.

I know that sounds more than a little crazy considering the circumstances but that's just the way it is.

Oh, I know that some of it is the adrenaline talking but there is more to it than that. The rest of it has to do with Kara herself and with the way in which she keeps dancing on the edge almost as if that edge weren't even there.

I am not even sure if she realizes that she is doing it at all but I can't miss it because... well, because I have a reference. I know what it feels like to fly when she isn't by my side and I have to say that taking on the cylons with her is very different from doing it with anyone else. Sure, there is a level of excitement that is part of going into battle, there's no question about that, but when she is not with me that excitement is tinged with fear rather than joy... and a lot of that has to do with trust. That, I think, is what this whole thing boils down to.

Out there I trust her implicitly and I know she trusts me, which is probably one of the main reasons why the realization that she had been keeping some pretty big secrets from me felt so much like a betrayal. The truth is that while I am still having a hard time trying to come to terms with the fact that she never told me about her mother, the one I'm really mad at is not Kara... though I am not sure she knows that. That, I suspect, is something I'm going to have to work hard to overcome.

The thing is that for all her bravado I do know that not too deep down Kara does have a rather annoying tendency to blame herself for... well, pretty much everything, actually. That is precisely one of the countless little things I had never been able to understand before but that all of a sudden are starting to make a disturbing amount of sense... and I know that in that regard chances are that my attitude hasn't exactly been helping matters.

Even though the rational part of me knows that what she kept from me was something personal, something that happened long before we even met and that there was no real reason for her to tell me about it in the first place, let's just say that my gut is still having a hard time trying to be rational about any of this and leave it at that.

Unfortunately I also know that unless I can manage to get that gut reaction under control I run the risk of permanently alienating her and that is a chance I can't afford to take... in fact even as things stand I know I am going to have some serious apologizing to do here. In these past couple of weeks I have been unable to even look at her without seeing her as the broken little girl she must have been all those years ago rather than as the competent but short-tempered woman she has become since then and that has been a mistake.

In a way I guess that is what I can take away from today's CAP, a lesson my father had been trying to drill into me almost from the beginning but that had never quite sunk in: the fact that in spite of everything we have learned in these past couple of weeks nothing has really changed, that when all is said and done Kara is still Kara. She is still crazy and impulsive as hell, not to mention that she is by far the best frakking pilot I have ever seen... and even though now I have a better understanding of _**why**_ she does some of the things she does, when it comes down to who she is, the truth is that that doesn't really matter.


	37. Chapter 37

_**For notes warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1.**_

Also please keep in mind that reviews make authors happy and research has shown that happy authors are twice as productive!

Chapter 37  
(Kara's POV)

As much as I enjoyed having the opportunity to shoot those raiders out of the sky I can't help but to feel a pang of regret as I am confronted with the realization that my first CAP was cut short by their arrival. Sure, I understand that, seeing how they had found us, we had no choice but to jump away and that given that vipers have no FTL capabilities we had to land in order to do so but damn it, after being grounded for what felt like ages I just wanted to stay out there for a little --or maybe a lot-- longer.

I'm still thinking about that as I reluctantly take off my helmet and climb down from my cockpit, leaving behind the familiar comfort of my viper and forcing myself to rejoin the noisy little world that is the hangar deck. I must have taken longer than I thought to gather my courage because by the time I'm done Lee is already there, waiting for me.

"Walk with me," he tells me, catching me totally off guard.

I follow him rather reluctantly to a supply closet, growing more and more perplexed by the minute. Whatever this is about it is pretty apparent that he doesn't want any witnesses and that particular thought is far from reassuring. It means that he wants to 'talk' and the truth is that in these past couple of weeks I've grown to dread those talks.

"I'm sorry," he says once he is sure we are alone.

"What?!" I ask, wondering what the frak is going on here. Honestly, there should be a rule against people just coming out and saying something like that out of nowhere... especially because as of right now I don't have a frakking clue as to what the hell it is that Lee is apologizing for in the first place.

"You heard me."

"Yes, I heard you, I just don't understand," I say, still trying to figure out what's going on, trying to figure out where we stand and not wanting to make a bigger mess out of this.

"It's just that... look, I messed up, okay?"

"Care to run that by me again?"

"Listen, this is hard enough already but I... I'm sorry."

"I got that part already," I growl, though I think I'm finally beginning to understand where this is going... of course, I also know that there's something like a ninety percent chance that I'm reading this whole thing wrong, but then again that is half the 'fun'.

"I shouldn't have freaked... no, that's not it. I had a right to freak but I shouldn't have gotten mad at you. I mean, sure, I still wish you would have trusted me enough to tell me about it but I guess I can understand why you didn't."

"It was none of your frakking business," I snap.

"No, it wasn't but damn it, Kara, you are my best friend and I wasn't exactly expecting to be blind-sided by something like that either!" he exclaims and for the first time in what feels like ages I think I can actually understand where he is coming from. After all, if our positions had been reversed, if someone had actually hurt Lee, I would probably have wanted to break something too --preferably someone-- and if that hadn't been an option I would almost certainly have ended up taking my frustrations out on the nearest target --probably him-- so the truth is that I don't think I would have handled it much better. 

Yes, having Lee hovering over me has been annoying as hell but I guess in his own twisted way he was just trying to show me that he cares... now all I have to do is get him to stop trying.

"I haven't changed, Lee," I whisper.

"No, you haven't," he admits, looking at me.

"So?"

"So."

"Right," I say and he just bursts out laughing, not that I blame him. I have to admit that as far as conversations go, ours do have a tendency to leave something to be desired. I mean, let's face it, we are both far better at understanding what we aren't saying than at making sense out of the words that actually do make it out of each other's mouths. 

"I still want to understand," he warns me after a few seconds of silence.

"I know you do, just, not now, okay?" I say hoping that he'll understand.

"Fair enough, but soon?"

"Soon," I promise, knowing that there's no way Lee is going to let this go, not completely, but feeling for the first time in what seems like forever that in the end we are going to be just fine. Sure, we still have a very long way to go to be back to anything remotely resembling normal --there's no question about that-- but at least now we are in the same book so how hard can it be for the two of us to actually make it to the same frakking page?


	38. Chapter 38

_**For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1.**_

_**Also please note that reviews make authors happy and research has shown that happy authors are twice as productive!**_

Chapter 38  
(Adama's POV)

I am more than a little surprised --not to mention incredibly relieved-- when I see Lee and Kara walk into the CIC side by side, smiling and looking far more relaxed in each other's company than they have been since this whole thing with Kara first came out. It takes me only a few seconds to realize that something must have changed while they were out there and I can't help but to shake my head at that.

For more than two weeks now Cottle had been doing everything in his power to keep Kara out of the cockpit in a desperate attempt to force her to straighten things out with us and yet as soon as he gave in to the inevitable and allowed her to go back out there, the two of them seem to have managed to overcome their problems in a matter of hours. _**That**_ is ironic.

Of course, I also know that in a way it is only natural. Out there there is no room for games, especially not when you are in the middle of a dogfight. When you are flying you have no choice but to trust your wingman with your life... not to mention that you blink and you are dead, literally. That, I suspect, is what Cottle failed to consider.

As a doctor he doesn't get to see them when they are out there --in their element-- so he was looking at the whole situation from the wrong perspective. He was looking at them as Lee and Kara without even realizing that the answer was to be found in Starbuck and Apollo instead. In other words, in his attempt to help them bridge the gap between them, Cottle ended up taking their bridge away from them instead and that in turn only served to make matters worse.

Oh, I know there's no way Starbuck and Apollo can't sort this one out on their own, not completely --if for no other reason than because Starbuck and Apollo are part of Lee and Kara and not the other way around-- but apparently they were all that was needed to put them on the right track.

Sure, this is still far from over. I know Lee and Kara still have plenty of things they are going to have to deal with before we can safely say that things are back to anything remotely resembling normal, and they are not the only ones, but at least now it seems like that first hurdle is behind them. It is apparent that the two of them have now regained some level of trust between them and that means that, if we are lucky, things between them will get a little easier and maybe --just maybe-- that trust will trickle down to the rest of us.

The truth is that up until now the biggest obstacle we had faced in our attempts to reach Kara had been, well, Kara. As Laura said, Kara has been keeping people at arm's length for way too many years and she doesn't have a clue as to _**how**_ to allow anyone past those defenses. That has been the real problem all along.

Yes, she trusts us on a rational level, there is no question about that, but at the same time she has always kept her distance... only now I get the feeling that Lee may have finally found a way to breach that final gap.

THE (not quite) END

* * *

_**Author's notes**_: Hi guys, okay first of all, sorry about the delay in getting this chapter posted. An unexpected but very necessary visit to my friendly neighborhood sadist (aka 'the dentist') left me in no shape to clean this one up last week.

Also, I know that ending it here may feel a little abrupt but there are a couple of reasons why I decided to finish this story here. The first one has to do with giving those readers who feel that it is moving too slowly a safe spot to walk away and the second has to do with giving myself more freedom as to how I move on from here, not to mention that I think the rest of this will probably work better as a series of short stories rather than as part of a massive fic.

In other words, while this is the end of this particular story, I am nowhere near done with this universe. Yes, it will probably be a few weeks before I post the first sequel but I do have a number of ideas floating in my head... now I just have to figure out how to organize them.

So that's it for now. Thank you for sticking with me, I really appreciate it (and, if you want to know what happens next, stay tuned!)

Alec


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